Political Review Editors Challenge Action by IOP

Two days after resigning from the Harvard Political Review in a dispute with the Institute of Politics (IOP), a group of Review editors yesterday circulated a flyer challenging the IOP's right to control the publication.

The editors left the Review to form their own political journal after the Institute of Politics Student Advisory Committee (SAC) decided to extend its authority over the quarterly magazine.

In a statement distributed to professors and administrators at the Kennedy School of Government yesterday, Review editors protested what they called "the institute's improper imposition of financial and editorial authority over an independently chartered student organization."

"The institute's contention that control of the magazine lies with the source of subsidy violates the most fundamental tenets of student journalism," the Review editors wrote.

The SAC has historically provided more than half of the Review's approximately $8000 annual budget. The SAC has also been listed as the magazine's publisher, although the Review's student staff writes and edits the magazine independent of the SAC.

SAC members maintain that the journal has always been a subsidiary of their organization. Review editors, citing the existence of separate constitutions for the two organizations, have said that their only link to the SAC is financial.

In recent years, the magazine has fallen into debt and the SAC has had to cover its losses, said David C. Michael '87, president of the SAC.

Last Sunday, after more than a year of negotiations between the SAC and the Review's editorial board, the SAC decided to appoint one of its members aspublisher of the Review to oversee thepublication's finances.

"This proposal circumvented the `comp'procedure established by the magazine's charter,removed the staff's power of approval, andultimately usurped control of the magazine," theReview editors stated in the flyer.

Review editors said they plan to send similarnotices to the political journal's alumni andbenefactors, said David M. Barkan '87, whoresigned from his position as the magazine'seditor-in-chief. "If they saw this, they would beshocked. I think they deserve to know," Barkansaid.

But IOP and SAC members said the accusationsthe Review executives made in the flyer wereunsubstantiated. They said that the newpublisher's responsibilities never includededitorial control of the political journal.

All but one of the Review's executives andstaff members have opted to leave the politicaljournal and attempt to form a new one on their ownrather than work with the publisher elected fromthe SAC, said Barkan.

Barkan said the former staff of the Reviewwould seek the right to use the title "HarvardPolitical Review" for their new magazine.

But Michael said that the journal publishedunder the aegis of the SAC would retain thattitle.

"We have title to the title," said Charles W.Trueheart, associate director of the Institute ofPolitics. He said that the money that the Reviewreceives from the Institute and the committee'slisting as publisher on the publication's mastheaddemonstrate the journal's traditional dependenceon the committee.

"The only place where there is independence isthat editors have regarded themselves asindependent--which speaks to the editorialindependence the SAC has given them," saidTrueheart.

Trueheart said the Review has "always been acreature of the SAC.