The Rhodes Road

To the Editors of the Crimson:

The Crimson story (April 9, 1981) on discrimination against women in the awarding of fellowships is misleading insofar as it purports to describe the behavior of the Massachusetts Rhodes Scholarship Selection Committee.

The article claims that this year the Committee asked Debbie Jacobs. Harvard '81 why she had participated in the Take Back the Night March. That claim and the context in which it appears suggest that the Massachusetts Rhodes Scholarship Selection Committee was both sexist and unsympathetic to the goals of the Take Back the Night March. Contrary to the article, the truth is that:

(1) the Massachusetts Committee never asked any such question of Ms. Jacobs. It did, however, nominate her as one of Massachusetts' two candidates for the New England Rhodes Scholarship competition. She was selected for that nomination from approximately seventy applicants:

(2) Dr. Kathryn McCarthy, the former provost of Tufts, a distinguished physicist and a member of the New England Rhodes Scholarship Selection Committee, asked Ms. Jacobs if she had participated in the March:

(3) Dr. McCarthy asked the question not because she is sexist, but because she lives near Harvard Yard, observed the March, and shared the marchers' concern for the safety of women. As it happens, Ms. Jacobs did not participate:

(4) the New England Rhodes Scholarship Selection Committee is entitled to award four Rhodes Scholarships annually. This year it awarded three of them to women, including Ms. Jacobs. Jeffrey B. Rudman   Secretary   Massachusetts and New England Rhodes Scholarship   Selection Committee