A Deplorable Contract

HARVARD'S DECISION to extend its contract to oversee the design of the Reza Shah Kabir University (RSKU), that the Iranian government is constructing outside Teheran, is a deplorable one. Along with the $250,000 consulting agreement Harvard signed last spring with the Iranian Educational Radio and Television (IERT), another project sponsored by the Iranian government, this decision once again reveals Harvard's disheartening willingness to cooperate with one of the most repressive regimes in the world today.

Since the CIA-backed coup that brought him to power in 1953, Shah Mohammed Pahlevi has ruled Iran with a ruthless authoritarian hand. It is now estimated that over 300,000 people have passed through the Shah's prisons in the past 20 years, and that an average of 1500 people are arrested each year. Professors and political dissidents critical of the regime are brutally tortured, and the Shah's police monitor all aspects of public activity.

While there are some good arguments for accepting money granted for academic use from a repressive government such as Korea, as Harvard did in taking a $1 million Korean grant in June 1975, it is inexcusable for Harvard to actively support the Shah's regime. The extended agreement, which will last until next summer, brings the total of Harvard's contracts for designing the "New Community" to over $1 million. Harvard has nothing to gain financially from the agreement. The money will simply be used to hire officials in the Harvard planning office, to fund the design work, and to dispatch Hal Goyette, director of the Harvard Planning Office, to Iran to oversee the project.

Goyette has described the master plan for RSKU as one of the most comprehensive and beautiful designs for a university he has ever seen. But when the complex is completed, the Shah will no doubt station SAVAK agents in very classroom to monitor discussions, as he has in every Iranian classroom. No matter how educationally innovative and aesthetically pleasing the university turns out to be, Harvard can have very little to be proud of.