DSO’s Conviction Problem

Two years have passed since Harvard College Faith and Action was put on administrative probation after its leadership was found to have pressured a bisexual assistant Bible course leader to resign after discovering her same-sex relationship. Soon after, the College stated that HCFA would have to sever its ties from its parent group Christian Union in order to regain its status as a recognized social organization on campus.

As it turns out, HCFA did not sever such ties. It was recently reported that HCFA continues to receive Christian Union funding in the form of staff salaries, office space, food, and scholarships for retreats. It was also reported that Christian Union gave the student group $796,180 between July 2017 and June 2018 while its year-long probation period was still underway.

This isn’t a new problem. A year ago we strongly criticized how the College’s poor enforcement of HCFA’s probation. It appears that not much — read: nothing — has changed since then. The fact that HCFA has still not severed its ties to Christian Union underscores the broadly felt impotence of the Dean of Students Office as an enforcing body.

We reaffirm our judgment that HCFA was wrong to discriminate against its membership on the basis of sexual orientation and that they should accordingly face the stated punishment. But it’s the College’s, and in particular the DSO’s, job to enforce these sanctions. At the point where HCFA has carried on without issue for two years, it’s hard to see such a lack of punishment as anything but Harvard’s fault.

As we have written before, it is ludicrous to believe that the sanctions against unrecognized single-gender social group members — spread out across all of the many recognized organizations on campus — would be enforced effectively (or at all) given how the probation of HCFA has been conducted by the DSO. In order to gain necessary credibility, the College must hold itself accountable for its incompetence in enforcing its probations and ensure that any violation of rules meets its stated consequences.

The College’s failure to enforce its probation of HCFA is likely connected to a statement made by Roland S. Davis, who then served as Associate Dean of Students for Diversity and Inclusion, that the College is hesitant to punish HCFA because it does not want to be seen as waging war on Christianity. While we recognize that Harvard does not want to be seen as an enemy of religion on campus, the College must apply its rules evenly and fairly, and we maintain that the freedom of one group on campus cannot come at the expense of another’s.

That being said, we value and appreciate religious groups having space on campus, and it is important that the College supports their presence. This support, however, cannot get in the way of the College’s ability to enforce prohibitions on religious groups that breach student organization policy.

HCFA should face the punishment it was given despite the time that has passed since its demonstrated discrimination and policy breach. To make that happen and to prevent future cases like this, Harvard should take full responsibility for failing to enforce its measures against HCFA, as well as social groups on campus, and it should move to improve the efficacy and transparency of implementing such punitive measures in the future.

This staff editorial solely represents the majority view of The Crimson Editorial Board. It is the product of discussions at regular Editorial Board meetings. In order to ensure the impartiality of our journalism, Crimson editors who choose to opine and vote at these meetings are not involved in the reporting of articles on similar topics.