Open Letter Sent to Undergraduate Council

The following text is excerpted from a letter to Undergraduate Council members dated January 29. The letter, signed by 18 council members, sets forth their interpretation of the campuswide divestment referendum scheduled for February 5 through 7. It was submitted to The Crimson for publication.

Today we have submitted to the Vice-Chairperson a petition that asks the Council to conduct a binding referendum on divestiture. This petition bears the signatures of more than seven hundred students, better than a ninth of the undergraduate population.

We are submitting this issue to a referendum because so much of our deliberation lately has been sidetracked in controversy over the political nature of student government. A referendum is the only way to know how our constituents want to treat such a "political" issue.

We offer this referendum as a vote of confidence in the "apolitical" approach to student government. We reject the view of student government that rejects issues of moral significance, or issues that inspire controversy, as foreign to the spirit in which the Council was created, and to the reasons for our continued existence. We are confident that students share our view, that the Council ought to be working (in the words of our constitution) "to seek an active role in the establishment of University policies and priorities," "to represent [students'] views," "to promote student interests, and...serve as a student forum for different points of view." We hope that our fellow members share this open and constructive approach to student government. But the recent popularity of "apolitical" student government, at least in one important quarter, has made it a view that cannot be ignored. The Chairperson, Brain C. Offut, has said of support for divestiture that "We ought not to endorse this type of political activity." His Vice-Chairperson, Steve Smith, has said that "I personally believe that it might not be in the Council's best interest to take on issues like that [divestiture] because when we take a position on an issue like that there is a whole segment of the campus that we alienate."

To predicate our actions on fear of alienating a segment of campus opinion is to reject democracy and majority rule. It confines student government to a narrow, bureaucratic sphere. This view espoused by the Council's leadership is already taking its toll. We have considered fewer substantive proposals (and more bylaw amendments) during the course of this semester than ever before. And most of our proposals, other than social events, have responded to the work of the College administration rather than to student initiative.

Who are we, you may ask, to be raising these concerns? We are 18 of your colleagues who are worried about the direction in which our officers have been leading us. But more important than who we are, is who we are not. We are not newcomers to student government; among us we have held all the offices of the Council and served on all its committees, and chaired most of them; some of us have been here as long as the Council. Nor are we the voices of the past: all of us were elected this fall, most us for the first time. Among us are the incumbent chairpersons of most of the committees, a third of your elected Administrative Committee. We represent all four classes, and most of the districts.

We do not want to spend all, most, or even much of our time on issues like divestiture. We do believe that student government must preserve its capacity to deal with them effectively to atrophy. The Harvard Undergraduate Council, the College's last official student government, lost the confidence of students because of its inability to cope with the political issues of its day, the spring of 1969.

We worry that our present leadership is leading us down this same road. Apolitical student government may work for the moment. The fabled apathy of the Harvard student will endure most anything, to a point. But when the rare issue comes along that genuinely arouses students, when there is a great need for a body that can effectively represent student opinion, we may fail. Two years ago the issue was divestiture; two decades ago it was a foreign war, and student participation in policy-making; two centuries ago it was "butter that stinketh not." Two years from now it may be divestiture, the draft, needblind admissions, a new foreign war, or something totally unforeseen. If we reject these for safer issues today, they will return to haunt us and undo our "safe" work tomorrow.

There is a happy medium. It is neither demands to the administration and proclamations about national and international polities, not the "apolitical" devotion to bureaucratic issues of the old Undergraduate Council and our own leadership. It is the path that we have been travelling until this semester; persuading the administration to student positions through carefully researched and thoughfully constructed policy alternatives. That our views may not meet with immediate success, or even success in the foreseeable future, is no reason not to try, or to stop trying. We are the only united, representative voice that undergraduates have. Sometimes speaking our mind is more important than getting our way. Our job is to speak maturely and persuasively, not to wonder when we speak.

We believe that the leadership's vision of student government calls for this remedy, and we offer this referendum as a vote of confidence in their approach. The outcome will show how our constituents would treat this "political" issue.

We hope that you share our concern, and invite you to join us in the coming semester to make the Undergraduate Council more accountable.

Karen Avery, Mather House

Arthur D. Goldman, Quincy House

Robert Greenstein, North Yard

Evan Grossman, Currier House

Tom Halpern, Dunster House

Flora Houn, Dunster House

Fernando Laguarda, Dunster House

Kamala Lakhdhir, Adams House

Melissa Lane, Dunster House

Brian Melendez, Cabot House

Steve Nussbaum, Mather House

Sam Rickless, Adams House

Mary Sarotte, Mather House

Tab T. Stewart, Currier House

Pam Thompson, Lowell House

Rob Weissman, Mather House

Shawna Yen, Canaday/Union Dorms

Richard Zayas, Leverett House