Single-Issue Candidates?

To the Editors of the Crimson:

Arthur Liman '54, nominated by the Alumni Association for the official Overseers slate, is quoted in The Crimson (January 20) as saying that he does not support the Harvard and Radcliffe Alumni/ae Against Apartheid Overseers slate "as he is `allergic to single-issue candidates.'"

So is HRAAA. And the canard that its candidates are single-issueers can only be regarded as stemming from ignorance or as part of a conscious plan by the University administration to denigrate such petition candidacies by using a convenient derogatory label.

Reading from the statements they prepared for the Voters Handbooks, last year's winning HRAAA-supported candidates, Peter Wood '64, PhD '72 and Consuela Washington JD '73, and the other four petition candidates HRAAA backed, listed the following issues (besides divestment): research funding priorities, undergraduate curriculum, strengthening the House system, improved conditions for graduate study, implementing affirmative action, admissions and employment practices, curriculum development, improved management skills by the University administration, development of peace studies and conflict resolution curricula, extent of CIA influence on faculty research, Harvard's relationship with Boston and Cambridge elementary and secondary schools, the status of women, and the quality of teaching.

The five candidates HRAAA is supporting this year--Michael Tanzer '57, PhD '62, Ephraim Isaac PhD '69, Nell Painter PhD '74, Evelyn Fox Keller PhD '63 and Ruth Messinger '62--will, I am sure, show an equivalent range of interests and social justice goals for the University. And the University administration, and uninformed and misinformed alumni/ae, will continue to shout "single-issue candidates." Chester W. Hartman '57