Discrimination Policy Discussed

The University has not taken adequate steps to publicize its new all-encompassing anti-discrimination policy, students told a panel of three University administrators last night.

In addition to proposing a publicity campaign, the students, participants in a forum sponsored by the Gay and Lesbian Students Association (GLSA), suggested that the University specifically consider the anti-discrimination policy when hiring residential tutors and house masters in order to create a better living environment for gays at Harvard.

Students were responding to a policy adopted by Harvard last July that prohibits discrimination against any University affiliate on numerous bases, including sexual orientation, political beliefs and physical disability. Harvard's decision followed similar legislation by the City of Cambridge.

Following an organized lobbying effort, in which the College's gay and lesbian community campaigned for formal measures prohibiting discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation, the University put into effect a three-pronged process for dealing with violations of the policy, said Dean of the College L. Fred Jewett '57, a member of last night's panel.

Jewett was joined by Assistant Dean of the Faculty Marlyn M. Lewis '70 and Professor of Philosophy Warren D. Goldfarb '69.

A student could bring an informal complaint to the attention of a house officer such as a senior tutor, who would proceed to work on the case with the student involved, Jewett said that because students are not well informed about the new legislation, it would be impossible for them to follow any of those routes.

Or, since a violation could be interpreted as an infraction of the Resolution on Rights and Responsibilities, the Committee on Rights and Responsibilities could investigate a case, Jewett said.

But forum participants last night said that since students are not well informed about the new legislation, it would be impossible for them to follow any of the above routes.

"I think a lot of gay people who

The committee set a deadline for applicationsto the internship program for the last day inJanuary. Letters the program had been distributedto South Africans and contacts, and news of theprogram was spread about. Harvard got responsesfrom several organizations and a list of ninepotential opportunities was made available toapplicants at the Office of Career Services (OCS).Although the University had not begun to reallycompile a list of internships, it was alreadyaccepting applications.

The mess became public last week when theSouthern Africa Solidarity Committee (SASC), apro-divestment student group on campus, released areport charging that the internship program was"structurally flawed" because the Universityfailed to consult with Black South Africans"representng real political constituencies" whensetting up the program.

"The end result of this is a program that, if[Harvard] goes ahead with the listed internships,it will harm everyone: Black South Africans,Harvard University, and people... who are put inmisleading situations and return to the UnitedStates with a distorted picture of life in SouthAfrica and of the state of South African society,"the report charges, after exhaustively attackingthe value of internship possibilities listed atOCS.

Premature, misconceived, and destructive werethe words Vice President and General CounselDaniel Steiner '54, chairman of the administeringcommittee, used to describe the report. To Steinerand the committee, the program was no where nearset up and thus could not be criticized.

The Steiner committee, which Bok set up toadminister the fund and which first met inOctober, began to set up the program byinstructing Eliot House Master Alan E. Heimert, amember of the committee, to distribute literatureto South Africans involved in educationalenterprises there. As the responses from SouthAfrica trickled in, Harvard began to recruitstudents to the program.

As these dual efforts of creating studentinterest and getting internship opportunitiesproceeded, the committee resolved to wait toevaluate both student and institutional responseuntil March, when Steiner would have returned froma fact-finding tour of South Africa. But anorganizational slip-up side tracked the program.

The list at OCS sparked the SASC report, whichfound all but one of the institutionsobjectionable.

It was by no means a complete or final list,Steiner says, but simply those institutions whichresponded to the OCS. Some other organizationsresponded to Heimert, while still more toMassachusetts Hall, Steiner explains, although hewill not specifically name other respondents.

"If we did it all over again, the [OCS] listwould not have been public," Steiner says, addingthat he would rather have described the types ofinternships available in general rather thanspecifically.

"I wanted to be as open as possible," saysMargot N. Gill, OCS associate director and acommittee member, explaining her reason forproviding the information. Now she says sheregrets the decision.

Today, there is little doubt Gill and Steinerwould have preferred the general approach becauseit was the list which sparked the critical reportabout the program by SASC. After their two weekinvestigation, SASC recommended that "theinternship program be suspended immediatelypending an investigation by the University andthrough consultation with representatives of BlackSouth Africans."

"The actual internships currently listed as`available' contradict the stated goals of theprogram," concludes the 48-page SASC report. Theactivists charge that these organizations do notserve the Black majority because they are eitherpredominately white private schools or wouldinvolve Harvard students in bolstering SouthAfrica's illegal occupation of Namibia.

Steiner says that the "misconceptions" aboutthe OCS list are due to organizational failures inhis committee although he points out that SASCnever discussed the issue with him before thegroup published its report. He blames the mix-upon the confusing effort of gathering institutionalinternship offerings while generating studentinterest.

"Ideally we would have a list of five or sixsuitable institutions all ready before solicitingthe student interns," Steiner says. "Perhaps weshould have started a little earlier," he adds.

But SASC members are still asking why there wasa need to set up the the undertaking so quicklythis year when organizational difficulties plaguedthe undertaking. The partisan student activistsanswer their own question: it was an urgent efforton the part of the University to quickly justifyits investments in South Africa and to preempt astrong spring divestment protest season.

Idealism

Ironically, it is the students who take thisless idealistic approach. To Heimert this view iscynical, and Steiner simply asks, "Why waitanother year to set up a good program?"

But is the program good? While SASC and Steinerbattle over the way the committee has gone aboutcreating the program South Africans debate thevery essence of the program itself: the roleeducation should play in battling apartheid.

"Liberation before education," some SouthAfricans cry while others stand by the slogan,"Education for liberation." These two battle criesillustrate the split between the moderate andradical approach to fighting apartheid. The firstviews the internships as bolstering efforts tobreak the apartheid educational system while thesecond sees Harvard involvement with such programsas helping to foster a Black elite.

Harvard, for the most part, contacted thoseSouth Africans who favor the moderate approach,many of whom are educators. SASC wants Harvard tospeak 'o the nation's Black politicalleaders--many of whom favor the radical point ofview that for apartheid to end, the Pretoriagovernment must be totally isolated.

The battle between Steiner and SASC has to beunderstood with a view to South Africa's domesticdebate over the role politics plays in education.Indeed both SASC and Harvard agree they will dowhat Black South Africans want, but the problem iswhich South Africans they choose to talk to.

In recent years some South African universitieshave begun admitting Blacks rather than followingstrictly segregationist policies. The numbers ofBlacks enrolled in such interracial institutionsare few--only about 9000 of the hundreds ofthousands of college age Blacks in 1985. But atleast in the views of some educators, theseuniversities offer a chance for moderatelyreforming South Africa.

One such educator is on of Harvard's chiefcontacts in South Africa, Dr. James Moulder, thepublic relations director and vice rector of theUniversity of Cape Town. Moulder set up meetingsfor Heimert with Black educators in South Africaand has been helping Harvard gather informationand responses to the program from the Blacks inthat nation.

"Some South Africans would be critical of theprogram and some would be for the program," saysMoulder, calling it naive of SASC to produce areport dictating the one type of person who canspeak on the subject. "If this is the type ofreport produced by Harvard students, maybe it isyour educational system which is in crisis."

Moulder, who has written a paper on theincreasing number of Blacks attending SouthAfrican universities, says he hopes to fight thepernicious effect of apartheid on the educationalsystem by fostering integrated schools, whichSouth Africans call non-racial. Harvard supportcan help that process, he says.

Elitism

But the nation's radicals argue that in factthese educational programs create a Black elitewithout giving any benefits to the majority ofBlacks. "The internship program will modernize theracial state apparatus," Moses Nkondo, an exiledBlack South African and visiting scholar atCurrier House argues.

Black leaders point out that these non-racialschools educate only a small number of Blacks; atthe University of Cape Town only 339 of 11,800students in 1985 were Black. Activists note thatthe Blacks who receive a good education stillcannot vote or even participate in real powersharing. Furthermore, the vast majority of Blacksstill receive a poor education and labor in arepressive economic system in the homelands.

"You'll never please the radical left wing. Myonly answer to the criticism is: `What do yousuggest? Do away with [private non-racial schools]or do you start somewhere?" Peter Cartwright,headmaster at the St. Cyprians School, told theCape Town newspaper the Weekend Argus in anarticle called "Togetherness." Cartwright believesthat non-racial schools like his are the beginningof the fight against apartheid.

Steiner asks, "What is wrong with helping toproduce future Black leaders of that nation?"

Moral Isolation

Black leaders argue further that any benefitsfrom the linkage between American and SouthAfrican schools would violate the need to isolatethe Pretoria government.

"Listen to the voice of the people, it iscalling for no involvement with South Africa,"says Pat Naidu, a Black South African self-exiledfor fear of being jailed. Naidu, who is a formerexecutive in United Democratic Front, a leadingBlack political organization, and was head of amedical students association, charges thateducation and politics are linked even when thereis no foreign involvement.

Harvard's involvement beyond the level ofcorporate investments rejects the politics ofthose who argue isolation is the best way todefeat the apartheid regime. "We don't want anyeducational involvement," Naidu says, adding thatHarvard can only bolster the efforts of thePretoria government with its interference.

"The state wants Americans to get involved. Itwants reform to come slow," Naidu says. OtherBlack activists argue that these non-racialschools are part of this slow reform which, theysay, is really only a government approved,public-relations ploy.

Politics

"One of the dificulties that university andeducation officials face is interference frompolitical groups," Moulder says of the impact thenationalist government has had on his and otherschools. But the white educator also resistsgiving up his educational freedom to the politicalideology of Black leaders.

"The education system is beseiged on the onehand by the South African government on the otherhand by various political parties, especiallyBlack ones," says Moulder, commenting on the SouthAfrican situation. He adds that "all of them wantto hijack the education system for their ownpurposes."

He would not contact political groups such asthe UDF, which SASC wants Harvard to contact,because he believes that educators "have a betteridea than political groups" of how to fightapartheid in education.

Harvard clearly agrees. "The notion of academicfreedom involves academics being in touch witheach other, without regard to politics," Steinersays, arguing that Harvard should involve itselfwith universities around the world.

Other Black South Africans fear the program issimply another step in Harvard's attempt tojustify its investments in that nation. The firstexcuse is a policy of intensive dialogue; nowthese internships go in the face of Blackpolitical leaders calling for isolation.

"The most constructive thing to do is toaddress at a very basic level the question ofpower," says Nkondo, the author of banned bookcritical of the apartheid education system. Nkondoargues that the internship program will do nothingbut bolster the Pretoria government. He points tothe fact that for Harvard to help the majority ofBlacks and thereby avoid elitism, it will have towork within the structure of the racist regime inhomelands and townships.

Steiner refuses to disavow any type ofinternship, including those criticized in the SASCreport as being elitist or working with thestructure of the racist state's government. But hedoes point to the difference of working withindividual scholars, although they may be inhomeland universities, and working directly withgovernment sanctioned institutions.

And those opposed to Harvard's educationalinvolvement in South Africa don't totally rule outAmericans' ability to help them directly. Naiduproposes that Harvard send interns to colleges inthe countries surrounding South Africa, such asLesotho and Mozambique, where Black South Africanrefugees go for an education.

"We will definitely welcome you into ourcountry the day we get our freedom," Naidu adds.

The following is the temporary list ofavailable South African internship which wasposted in Room 308 of the Office of CareerServices (December 19, 1985):

St. John's College, Johannesburg:Internship--English language teaching for theirBlack pupils.

Michaelhouse, Natal: Internship--someoneto teach, coach sports, and assist with culturalactivities (Dolf Berle is current intern).

St. George's Grammar School, Mowbray:Internship--to teach science and/or Mathematics,Biology or computer science to boys from 13 to 17years of age.

The Rossing Foundation, Namibia: Twokinds of internships

--teaching internships for interns with aknowledge of teaching English as a foreignlanguage.

--agricultural intern for a candidate with aknowledge of vegetable growing and some experiencein the organizing of co-operatives.

TUCSIN -- The University Center for Studiesin Namibia, Namibia: Internship--the internwould prepare a research and development proposalon the cultivation and domestication of amulti-purpose plant endemic to the Namib Desert.Candidate should be a graduate student with abackground in the biological sciences.

TUCSIN -- Museum internship-tocatalogue, preserve and exhibit small museumcollections of artifacts and items of naturalhistory. Also to train local people interested inmuseum work. Candidate should have a background inanthropology and museum work.

St. Alban's College, Pretoria:Internship--a young graduate student who can teachcomputers, math, or general science and who hasgood athletic skills.

St. Andrew's School, Transvaal:Internship--candidate to be involved in anenrichment program for their Black pupils,particularly in English, math, speech, drama(girls' school ages 5-17).

Science Education Project, Johannesburg:Internship--candidates to be involved in helpingupgrade secondary school science curriculum.

PROTEC--Programme for Technological andEngineering Careers: The organization offersenrichment programs for disadvantaged students--anintern would be used to assist in teaching scienceand math. Candidate should be someone with specialinterest in self-help methods.

Other internships not listed in the OCSmemo include:

An academic support program at theUniversity of Cape Town which preparesBlacks to matriculate at the school.

St. Barnabas School, a predominantlyBlack, non-racial private school.

Black Sash, a civil rights organizationpredominantly of white South African women.

The Soweto education system in atownship where Blacks are segregated.

Sources: A REPORT ON THE HARVARDUNIVERSITY SOUTH AFRICAN INTERNSHIP PROGRAM,issued by the Harvard-Radcliffe Sounthern AfricaSolidarity Committee, January 29, 1986 andinterviews with Steiner Committee members.Eliot House Master ALAN E. HEIMERT and VicePresident and General Counsel DANIEL STEINER:spearheading the effort to bring Harvard studentsto South Africa.