People in the News: Jason L. Lurie '05

Jason L. Lurie ’05 raised a stir this year when he challenged whether the Undergraduate Council should give funds to two Christian groups which require that their leaders subscribe to certain principles of faith.

Lurie said he got interested in the matter of grantage when, as a first-year, he lost his bid for Council representative and took up watching Council business from the sidelines.

“I kept up with the legislation, including grants, that was being passed [by the Council]. I looked at the fall semester’s grant package and I saw that a lot of money was going to groups that I wasn’t sure I could join,” he says.

Lurie said he checked the bylaws and the constitutions of many student groups, including Hillel, the Catholic Students Association, the Harvard Islamic Society, the Juggling Club and the Kendo Club.

But Lurie says he was troubled by the constitutions of only two groups—the Harvard-Radcliffe Christian Fellowship (HRCF) and the Asian Baptist Student Koinonia (ABSK)—which have strict eligibility requirements for leadership positions.

HRCF’s constitution states: “Officers of this organization must subscribe without reserve to…principles of faith” that include belief in the resurrection of Jesus Christ and the existence of the Holy Spirit.

And this November, after he was elected a representative from Cabot House, Lurie decided to take the matter to the floor of the Council meeting.

He objected to providing grants for HRCF and ABSK, charging they discriminated on the basis of religion.

“I’m not opposed to Christian groups on campus. I don’t hate Christians. I just think that everyone should play by the same rules,” he says. “I’m not anti-Christian. I’m not anti-religion. I’m anti-discrimination.”

While the Council approved a grant for ABSK the following week, Lurie’s objections prompted College administrators to investigate HRCF.

At first, administrators seemed to support Lurie’s position.

“The sense of the [Committee on College Life (CCL)] on this matter was quite clear: student groups should not discriminate for membership or in the choice of officers,” wrote Associated Dean of the College David P. Illingworth ’71 in a December e-mail. “I have let HRCF know of this opinion. I have offered to work with them to develop constitutional changes which would bring them into compliance.”

However, by the spring semester, the College changed its stance.

In an April e-mail, Illingworth wrote that “there is little reason to split the hair between a clause in the constitution restricting what officers should believe and the expectation that any organization will inevitably select officers in support of its stated purposes.”

Following the CCL’s approval of the group’s leadership policy, the Council overwhelmingly voted in favor of a grant to fund HRCF.

Lurie said he was disheartened by how few colleagues on the Council supported his cause. Although he says he still feels that the HRCF’s constitution was “wrong,” he is not sure if he will pursue this matter next year.

For Lurie, however, the most memorable event of the past year was his first girlfriend, a fellow science concentrator.

Aside from this personal milestone, Lurie said he will also remember this year for the HRCF affair and for his unsuccessful bid for the presidency of the Council.

“I was 99 percent sure that Rohit [Chopra ’04] was going to win,” says Lurie about his failed presidential run. “I ran to try to bring these issues to the forefront of campus debate. If we are not going to stand up for what we believe in as a council then…the College is not going to take us seriously.”

Lurie is also vice president of Demon magazine and an officer in both Students for Healthy Babies and the Harvard Secular Society.

He says he’s not sure what his role will be in next year’s council.

“I’m really kind of burned out,” he said. “Maybe I’ll run for the council again. Maybe I’ll run for president. Maybe I’ll apply to be on the Committee on College Life. Who knows? Maybe I’ll fade away from public life.”