The Answers We've Been Waiting For

Though I will soon be forgotten, I used to have a hand in running a college newspaper editorial page. Tough, thankless job that it is, I am delighted to announce that it has at least prepared me well for the life that line ahead.

Because running a college newspaper editorial page, in addition to making you the darling of compulsive letter writers everywhere and rendering you a bleary-eyed vet of intraextracurricular-activity politics, gives you sharpened vision and brilliant insight. Not to toot my own horn, but I now have what it takes to solve the great problems of our time.

So my gift to Harvard College on this, my final day as a non-alum, is a solution to the two biggest problems at Harvard this year. For throughout the final quarter of my college career, two issues have dominated editorial columns across campus. First, Should Radcliffe Exist? And second, though certainly no less important, Aren't Conservative Students Oppressed?

For most of the past three years, Radcliffe has been a mystery institution that periodically issued a report on its own status, a cryptic "R" in the abbreviated name of some student group. Suddenly this year, students woke from their blissful ignorance and entered a debate over whether this nonentity should continue to non-exist. Earnest pieces on Radcliffe began to clutter the 10,000 magazines of Harvard. The Radcliffe fracas even won the ultimate mark of legitimacy, an Istitute of Politics debate in its honor.

Fuel for the flame was the decision by the Radcliffe Union of Students (RUS) to continue to bar men from voting. Not that men ever cared before. In fact, they tend to shun the mysterious "R" like the plague, with the exception of that guy who attended the Women's Leadership Conference so he would look sensitive for the Rhodes Scholarship committee (it worked). But once they learned that some club somewhere was barring them from entry--that they were being honest-to-god oppressed--a bunch of men suddenly got incredibly indignant.

The battle cry of "we men are oppressed echoes the louder, more vehement shriek of "we conservatives are persecuted at this liberal hell-hole." True, Harvard got a fairly mild dose of the dread Political Correctness; Harvard's administrators are, thankfully, too smart to go around censoring people still, one faction of conservative students managed to paint itself as battered, beaten-down, eternally voiceless. This powerless bunch later went on to found 57 new conservative organizations and take over the Republican Club.

This year's keyboard-wielding Harvard super-conservatives have come up with a number of timeless articles on such topics as "Liberals are idiots," "Boy are liberals idiots," and "Liberals are idiots because the don't have anything to say." In fact, in recent months they've proven it possible to write entire columns about how little liberals have to say--leaving, unfortunately, no room for any ideas of their own.

Ihave a modest proposal that should make everyone happy: Convert Radcliffe College into the Radcliffe Center of the Glorification of Conservatism.

This way, Radcliffe could continue to exist, albeit in altered from. And all those oppressed men (and a few oppressed hyperconservative women) would finally have a central location, a place to gather and discuss oppressed men's issues, a place where, at long last, they felt there belonged.

Instead of razing its buildings in the name of equality, Radcliffe could preserve the resources that are, indeed, used. Some of Schlesinger Library's outstanding collection might, of course, need to be trashed to make room for the complete William F. Buckley papers and all of the those Rush Limbaugh transcripts, but so be it. Conservatives could even wrest the Agassiz. Theatre from the drama club to stage wistful re-enactments of the Nixon years.

In place of the Bunting Institute (who needs graduate fellowships, anyway?) the Radcliffe Center could host a series of workshops to help conservatives deal with the pressures of living amongst all those vicious liberals. Prospective editorialists could cultivate that characteristic snide tone of voice. Brow-beaten moralists could learn to cope in the presence of revision and plurality.

Of course, the Radcliffe Center's resources would only be available for the right kids of conservatives, so to speak. Anyone who didn't subscribe to the tenents of true Harvard conservatism wouldn't get past the guards.

That means you'd have to believe that any socially liberal ideas (feminism, gay rights, abortion rights) zip right down the slippery slope to cultural relativism and the moral decay of Our Great Nation. You'd have to present yourself as a martyr for defending free speech and then use your well-deserved speech to spout only intolerance. You'd have to dismiss moderate conservatives as sissies, or as closet liberals. You'd have to vehemently deny that you were actually on the fringe.

The creation of the Radcliffe Center would allow everyone to ignore the obvious. Radcliffe has a proud and important past--it served as source of education for women when such sources were scarce. But its use as a college is obsolete. Once the powers-that-were decided to make the Harvard experience co-ed, Radcliffe was destined to be little to be little more than a mystery "R".

Recognizing the truth about Radcliffe would mean admitting that Radcliffe 's presence to undergraduates is already largely symbolic-that Radcliffe already serves as shorthand for "female Harvard students." If RUS disappeared, people would quickly from a Women's Students Association of comparable size and constituency. And Harvard students would find a way to take back the night, Radcliffe or no.

In short, there is no debate over whether Radcliffe College should exist. For all intents and purposes, it already doesn't. Radcliffe is now a library, a group of fellowships, a collection of alumnae, a label to use when necessary or convenient.

But closing the book on Radcliffe would be taking away all the fun. The men who fear Radcliffe would have no reason to complain, no response for the women who think Radcliffe is fine as it is. Destroying the Radcliffe Myth would be like admitting that conservatives aren't as oppressed as they like to claim. Once liberated, what would they find to talk about?

This is Harvard, after all. There are magazines to fill and forums to hold, Most importantly, there are egos to appease. Harvard students have to feel important, and in today's era of special interests and identity politics, you're only important if you're oppressed.

Harvard women, for the most part, are through with oppression--and they're too busy rowing crew or directing musicals or writing for newspapers to complain about their victim status. They know that regardless of whether our diplomas say "Harvard" or "Radcliffe" or "Harvard-Radcliffe", we all suffered through the same boring speeches on plagiarism, and we all had to eat the same institutional food.

Harvard ultra-conservatives, on the other hand, could use a little help. It's not easy being ignored because everything you say sounds so hopelessly redundant. It's not easy being dismissed because you have so few original ideas. It's not easy feeling lonely because you've alienated everyone around you.

Let's face it, those folks could use a little tender loving care. How about tossing them a hand-me-down institution? We don't really need it anymore.

Joanna M. Weiss '94 was editorial chair of the Crimson in 1993. for her next project, she plans to take on the health project, she plans to take on the health care crisis. he has a pet parakeet named Percy Pigeon.