Cut the Ties

To the Editors of the Crimson:

We are writing to express our frustration at the way negotiations between the final clubs and the student-faculty Committee on College Life are proceeding.

Realistically speaking, the most recent one-month "reprieve" from potential College actions, enacted to allow the clubs more time to consider admitting women, is merely symptomatic of a lingering reluctance on the part of male-dominated Harvard hierarchies to sever ties with what is longstanding tradition: the University attitude of "male supremacy". It seems fairly obvious from the results of straw votes within the clubs that they themselves will not elect to admit women, nor necessarily should they. However, as a sophisticated and enlightened institution of higher education, it behooves Harvard to publicly sever ties (centrex phones, access to College alumni lists and steam heat) with this last bastion of male elitism. Since most of the clubs have already begun voluntary replacement of phone and heat services, and many of them have close connections with their alumni on the faculty, such a gesture would be chiefly symbolic; but it is one that is long overdue. The time for university-sanctioned elitism is long past. Personally, we are tired of the drawn-out rounds of negotiations that seem to be deliberately prolonged for the purposes of extended rationalization. Marisa Januzzi '87   Loriel Boulris '87   Christina Holt '87   Mary Alice Berle '87