Head Games

it isn't justice, it's administrative convenience. --Edison Carter

THE FIRST (allegedly) rowdiness-free Head of the Charles regatta weekend has come and gone. There was nothing pretty about it.

The MDC, Dean of Students Archie C. Epps III, and the house-masters decided to exercise unprecedented authority over the Harvard community and the banks of the Charles in an attempt to curtail the craziness that has plagued the Heads of the past.

The campus rules were more than stringent. Access of "outsiders" to the houses was limited, a xenophobic move by supposedly egalitarian Harvard if ever there was one. The obsession with proper Harvard identification was so complete that one student who ran out without her burser's card couldn't get back into her Mather House room until nightfall.

Not all the houses were airtight, granted; Adams left many entrances unguarded and the Quad had no unusual protection against rowdiness.

In one house, Eliot, though, parties were out and out banned, and administrators there took less heat from students than they should have for justifying the crackdown in part because some students planned to take the LSAT on Saturday. What weekend passes at Harvard without some students somewhere making a key pre-professional move? Should there be lights out at 11:00 p.m. on their account?

AND WHAT did the University provide as an alternative to a quiet reading in houses where friends from high school were turned away at the gate? Disappointment.

A Head of the Charles dance was scheduled to start at a very late 10:00 p.m. on Saturday. "Revelers" were left thinking "Is that all?" at the magical hour of 1:00 a.m. The refreshments brought back memories of under-17 nights at the local dance club.

The day of the regatta itself? The MDC, reeling from the Examscam trial and allegations of drug abuse by officers, decides to strike a blow for morality by enforcing the alcohol ban on the Charles for 10 hours.

Those who might have liked some wine with their Head of the Charles picnic drank soda and probably stewed in indignation. After all, anyone bound and determined to get behind the wheel of a car pickled simply drank. It's just too easy to empty a can of soda and fill it with straight vodka. Bloody Marys, daquiries, rum-and-Cokes, they all circulated--in tomato juice cans.

There wasn't much compensation to be had in watching the frustration of 300 MDC officers out to foil drinkers in flourescent orange jackets visible across the river.

One result of the effort to keep partiers off the River banks where they belonged was to force many onto the Harvard Square streets authorities had hoped to keep free of rowdies.

The crowd around the door of the Hong Kong could have turned out for your average Who concert. With an incinerator, the trash lying on Square sidewalks could have powered a small city.

In short, the restrictions placed on Harvard students did not solve any problems. They merely convinced a lot of visitors that this is an unfriendly, stuck-up place to visit.

In announcing this year's crackdown, the MDC threatened to cancel the race permanently if it failed to work. And it didn't.

But what is the MDC for if not protecting a tradition like the Head of the Charles? The only "problem" is that the MDC either sends 30 patrolman to control a crowd of 200,000, as it did two years ago, or announces the end of fun and sends a battalion of 300 police dressed like comic book heroes, as it did this year.

What's needed, as far as the University is concerned, is for students to be reminded of the need to lock their doors whenever a couple of hundred thousand come for a visit. Sure, something unpleasant might still happen to someone, but that's not sufficient cause for a guard at every door.

All the MDC needs to do is send a fair number of police to wander quietly about in search of troublemakers. Then maybe the rest of us could have a good time.