Looking for a Settlement

Just when it appeared to be over, it wasn't.

The dispute between the Gay Students Association (GSA) and the Yearbook over an article depicting Adams House as a "haven for homosexuality" dragged on this week because top Yearbook officials decided, after tentatively agreeing to GSA demands, that "we didn't want to be forced" into making concessions.

The Yearbook did issue a short apology to its readers, but the GSA insisted on an apology to gays that would be distributed along with unsold copies of the Yearbook and in House dining halls.

When 1981 Yearbook officials refused to be swayed by the GSA's threat to protest at Commencement, 1982 Yearbook president Donald E. Tarver '82 said he would try to meet some of the GSA's demands.

But Tarver was quickly overruled by a large majority of the 1982 executive board, which decided instead to disavow all responsibility for the Adams House article.

The GSA now says it plans to contact Harvard alumni offices nationwide, which receive annual copies of the Yearbook, and ask them to protest the Adams House article to Yearbook officials.

Steven N. Fine '81, 1981 editor-in-chief, said he though the GSA "voerreacted" to the article, written by Adams House resident Jared S. Corman '81. Fine said the GSA's demands were "out of proportion to the hurt the article caused."

GSA spokesmen, however, made it clear that the Yearbook article, a parody that described the sex ratio at Adams House as "one to one to one," was only the latest in a year-long series of offenses against gays at Harvard.

"When you consider the trend all year." Benjamin H. Schatz '81, former GSA president, said recently, "it's getting to be a little too much."

Current GSA president Sarah E. Yedinsky '83 agreed. "The Yearbook's article is one more example that gays' presence is not recognized," she said, adding, "It was the final straw."