Electioneering

The following is an open letter to Joan T. Bok, Chairman of the Board of Overseers of Harvard University:

Today I received a letter from you with my ballot for the election of overseers, urging me to think carefully about my decision. I have been voting as carefully and conscientiously as I can for five years now. and I am deeply offended by the patronizing tone, invidious implications, and what seems to be the political rationale of your letter.

You remind voters that three candidates for the Board of Overseers, if elected, will actively work toward divestment. You suggest that the board will be quite "different" if activist candidates are elected. For myself, I cannot see that the real situation is any "different" this year. You do not remind us that other candidates push for other goals, which, like divestment, may or may not happen to be acceptable to individual voters. All candidates worth voting for always push their own policies and preferences--in finances, in curriculum, in academic administration, and otherwise--and presumably we elect them on the basis of their commitments and convictions. That our candidates have opinions--even strong and perhaps single-minded ones--is no criticism of their abilities, and far from threatening the electoral process and the composition of the board actually should strengthen and renew them.

The bottom line therefore seems obvious enough to me: this year you yourself and anyone else for whom you might be speaking--on what authority I wonder?--are not in favor of the commitments and convictions of certain candidates or of their mode of operation. In my opinion, it is totally inappropriate for you to make any statement of this kind whatsoever, especially on the official letterhead of the Board of Overseers and accompanying ballots.

Whether other alumni approve or disapprove of various proposals for divestment, I hope they will agree with me that your attempt to influence the election by suggesting that somehow matters are "different" this year must be vigorously condemned. You have exhibited an appalling lack of respect for your electorate and a very poor judgment in this matter, and I will be urging voters in my class, other alumni, and other members of the Harvard community to register their discontent in a variety of ways. At the very least, you owe us all a public explanation Whitney Davis '80   Junior Fellow, Society of Fellows