A Bad Loin Of Porc

In the bowels of Pusey Library sits a book so secret that it doesn't show up on HOLLIS.

In fact, even if he knew about the book, the president of Harvard couldn't read it without the written permission of one Christopher B. Dewing '95.

Dewing holds the exalted office of president of the Porcellian Club, a charming group of young, virile men who will one day take their preordained place among the nation's best and brightest. The book is a history of the club published in 1991 to celebrate the Porcellian's bicentennial.

Such a book would be useful to a Harvard student or researcher interested in studying the social lives of undergraduates here--if the Porcellian and the archives didn't treat it like the papers of former Harvard president and Manhattan Project participant James Bryant Conant'14.

But just as researchers will have to wait 50 years to find out exactly what Conant did to fight the H-bomb, we commoners will not know the about the lives of the rich-and-famous Porcellian elite until the year 2041.

Of course, with the book not showing up in Hollis, Porcellian members are basically the only people who know about it. The only way to wiggle an exception to the 50-year rule keeping undergraduates from the book, according to the archives employee I spoke with last week, is to write the Porcellian president. The archives, however, doesn't keep a name or address for the Porc or its president. "I guess you just have to know," the archives employee said.

Now, perhaps you were under the mistaken impression that the University had a decade ago severed all ties to the nine all-male bastions of elitism known as finals clubs. But that denies the fact of the Porcellian's ongoing relationship with the Harvard University Archives.

Dewing said last week: "I'm fully aware of our relationship with the archives." He declined to comment further.

Asked about the Porcellian book last week, Dean of Students Archie C. Epps III said it's okay for the archives to hold Porcellian records from before the severing of ties. But "the archives should not have an active relationship with any of the final clubs." Epps said he was not currently aware of the 1991 Porcellian book.

Harley Holden, the dedicated and thoughtful curator of the University archives, acknowledges the relationship between his office and the Porcellian but doesn't see a problem.

"Our mission is to get documents in here and preserve them," he says. "We really haven't got into that issue [the severing of ties] with the finals clubs."

Holden says the access to the Porcellian records is not as important to him as having the records in the archives. "The Porcellian won't let us show anything recent," he says. "Their records are treated like University records. But if the restrictions were longer, that would be okay."

What Holden ignores is that the presence of the book in the archives is a clear violation of Harvard's "sever all ties" policy. But to be fair, one should note that the rule puts Holden and the archives in a pinch.

Holden's job, after all, is to preserve as much of Harvard's history as he can. To the end of a preserving a historical record of students' social life, Holden should be trying to secure and maintain as many records from student groups as possible.

Still, the University should make clear to the archives staff that the Porcellian shouldn't be on their list of student groups. In severing all ties to the final clubs in 1984, Harvard made an important statement against sex discrimination. By maintaining a relationship with the Porcellian, the archives is undermining that stand.

And the way the club controls access to the book suggests that it is less interested in promoting historical study than in using the University's archives as an annex to the Porcellian's private library.

For all these reasons, Harvard should give the Porc their book back.