Students Meet to Plan Rally

Representatives of the Harvard-Radcliffe Students for Choice and the National Organization for Women (NOW) met last night to coordinate their participation in the Rally for Women's Rights, which will be held in Washington, D.C. on April 9.

Students for Choice has chartered three buses to transport students to the one-day event, which is being held in conjunction with the Young Feminist Summit on Violence.

"There are many things that fall under the title of violence against women that are no longer acceptable," said Jennifer R. Davis `95, Co-chair of Students for Choice. "We want to get some people from Harvard to go and send the message that these are issues that we care about."

According to a letter from NOW to campus organizers, the rally will focus on violence against women in many forms "from anti-abortion terrorism to domestic violence to the tyrannical measures of the Republicans' contract."

Phillips said organizers expect half a million participants from around the country.

"It's really important for this generation to come out and show that we care about violence against women," said Heather Haxol Phillips '97, who, as a member of the NOW organizing committee for the conference, is helping to publicize the event and mobilize students at Harvard.

Described by Phillips as "a weekend of activism" the Washington event will also include the unveiling of the Clothesline Project--a tribute in the spirit of the AIDS Quilt in which, according to NOW, "rows of tee shirts commemorate or memorialize real women who have been battered, raped, assaulted or murdered."

Students for Choice will be publicizing the event with posters and tables at dining halls this week and next.

"A lot of people at Harvard seem to care but they don't think their face will make a difference," Phillips said.

Christina Kowalewski '95, Co-chair of the Students for Choice, said she hopes that recent local and national events will make the event particularly timely.

"We're bringing awareness to the issue right after the Brookline shooting and the Nicole Brown Simpson affair," she said.

According to Davis, the last time that Students for Choice organized a contingent to a national rally of this nature was in 1992, when they and other campus organizations sent ten buses of students to Washington D.C.

The cost for round-trip bus transportation if $40, and organizers of the tip said they expect that all 141 seats will be filled.

"It's $40 bucks, you go down there, yell your brains out, and have a good time," Phillips said.