Keep Sever 113 Open

Closed-door meetings. Reporters shut out of the debate on important initiatives. Spin doctors running interference between regular students and the officials who spend their money. To anyone who’s paid attention to the developments of the last few years, these modern accoutrements of decision-making at Harvard are sadly familiar. But the situation just described isn’t taking place in some administrative corridor of power, where it might by now be reasonably expected—it’s unfolding in Sever 113, the meeting-room of the Undergraduate Council.

Four times in the last month, the council has gone into “executive session,” in which non-council observers—including The Crimson’s reporter—are kicked out of the meeting. Any matter discussed in executive session is made unconditionally secret, so council members are barred from discussing the details of any of these debates with outsiders. And when looking for a morsel more of information on the council’s most important actions, interested parties run into a recently-appointed press secretary, who seems to serve little purpose beyond issuing empty statements of support for the council’s leadership. What is supposed to be an open, democratically-elected body representing Harvard’s undergraduates is taking on unsettling characteristics of the Soviet Politburo.

Executive session is not in itself a wholly bad institution; there may be occasions when students would benefit from the council shielding its deliberations from the administration and the larger public. But that is the only time executive session should be used: when it is clearly, unambiguously in the interests of the student body.

According to online minutes, under the last council administration, executive session was used only once, briefly, in a February 2003 meeting, and not to close off an open debate. The four instances already racked up by the current council have prevented the student public from hearing its representatives’ arguments on issues including universal keycard access and Springfest. Student safety and student entertainment are two of the most important domains of council business, large parts of the reason students dedicate part of their term bill to the council’s coffers. It is hard to see any excuse for keeping students in the dark about their representatives’ arguments on these topics.

This point has not been lost on everyone in the council. Joshua A. Barro ’05, a representative from Adams House, has correctly criticized one recent instance of executive session as “totally inappropriate.” Council President Matthew W. Mahan ’05 has countered that these blackout tactics, initiated by any one representative’s motion and authorized by a simple majority of council members present, are made necessary by the high-stakes give-and-take he and other representatives must engage in. “Basically, when we are negotiating with the president’s office and the administration in general, we want to control the information that goes out,” Mahan told The Crimson last week. He’s entirely right to want to play hardball with University and College bigwigs, but since when did that mean keeping students out of the loop? Mahan and other council leaders surely have ample opportunity to consult quietly with one another about their most private strategies—outside of council sessions. When the deliberation process is far enough along to come to open debate on the floor of the council, the deadline for such secrecy has long passed.

In recent correspondence, Mahan has said that the current frequency with which executive session has been called is an aberration, explaining that he doubts it will happen again. If so, students will benefit immensely from the council’s continued transparency. Until then, we can only urge Mahan and his fellow representatives to remember that acting as student advocates means keeping all students as involved and informed as possible.