Togetherness

To the Editors of The Crimson:

As the Committee for Women's Studies, we are writing to protest Dean Epps's ruling against the Radcliffe Union of Students (RUS) women's dining hall planned for Tuesday evening, March 15 at Mather House. Epps's action reveals a lack of understanding of the history and purpose of these dining halls and demonstrates a general insensitivity to the position and interests of women on this campus. That such an event was permitted at the Radcliffe Quad for six years but prohibited any closer to the River exemplifies Harvard's ambivalence toward its merged-non-merged sisters.

To allow women 45 minutes to eat dinner together is not an act of discrimination against men but is acknowledgement of a discriminatory status quo which can be altered only through positive action. Mather House men would have suffered negligible inconvenience by being asked to eat next door at Dunster House for 45 minutes; but more important, 'reverse discrimination' is not an acceptable argument except in a community where all inequities among sexual and national groups have been eliminated. At Harvard this is clearly not the case.

The administration has refused to accept its responsibility toward women and minorities in the Harvard community. Instead of taking the affirmative steps necessary to counteract a tradition which does not cater to our needs and interests, Harvard has maintained the unrealistically ideal assumption that every interest group is on equal social and financial footing here.

It was in this spirit that the women's dining halls were established in 1970-71. When Quad dorms went co-ed, Radcliffe students had a strong desire to maintain their identity as women, and in accordance with this feeling North House instituted the policy of setting aside a dining hall for women periodically. From 1970-1976 the North House committee continued to sponsor and provide sherry and publicity for the dinners. This fall, North House voted its 'support' for the dinners but withheld its funds, so the RUS legislature allocated a part of its own budget and solicited funds from other House Committees to maintain the tradition. Five well-attended dinners have been held this year in Radcliffe dining halls. They have been warm, lively, animated gatherings of women who rarely have such an opportunity to be with each other as Radcliffe women. Because RUS has frequently been asked to make more services and events accessible to women in the Harvard Houses, and because Mather House women had expressed interest in a women's dining hall there, approval was obtained from the Mather House Committee and master to hold a 45-minute-long women's dinner, after a sherry hour. At the last minute, it was learned that Dean Epps would not permit the dinner, and had required that RUS cancel the event.

The office of the dean of students should be playing a leading role in fostering the development of undergraduate activities. Instead, this ruling, like the ruling against Asian-American minority recognition, can only be seen as an obstruction of the independent voice of student organizations. Not only as dues-paying members of the Radcliffe Union of Students, but as women at Harvard, we claim the right to eat and speak together once a month in Harvard dining halls. Sarah Rabkin '77