Candidates' Statements Unusually Pointed

As voting begins in this year's Board of Overseers election, a number of candidates, overseers and divestment activists said that issue-oriented statements in the official voter packet signal increasing politicization of the election.

This year's booklet of candidate statements, mailed to Harvard's more than 200,000 alumni in the past two weeks, includes unusually specific endorsements of issues, they said in interviews this week.

"The statements have been a little sharper this year," said Overseers President Samuel C. Butler '51 yesterday. "I wouldn't be surprised if the [statements] were sharpened because the election is being politicized."

In addition to the six petition candidates running on a divestment slate, several among the dozen Harvard-nominated candidates delineate their views on financial aid, female representation on the faculty and divestment.

Butler and fellow overseer Franklin D. Raines '71 two months ago criticized the divestment slate for politicizing the election, charging that the divestment candidates have overspent on campaigning.

This year's election is the second in which the activist group Alumni Against Apartheid (AAA) is sponsoring a pro-divestment slate to run for the overseers.

AAA members say the increased directness of the statements is an attempt by the University to increase its candidates' chances against the pro-divestment slate.

"I was interested and surprised to see that people are taking stands" on issues, said Chester W. Hartman '57, a member of the AAA's executive committee. "It is quite clear that what comes out is a response to our slate."

Most candidates' voter statements have in past years been bland statements of "fondness" for the University, Hartman said. "In previous years, it's been customary to say nothing. But this year, they've wanted to say something."

Candidates' Views

"I think the [overseers packet] is a good opportunity to be able to say things which are important and timely," said Harvard-nominated candidate Helen C. Barber '51, a former director of the Harvard Alumni Assocation and a California community activist.

In her statement, Barber urges the

University to "actively recruit distinguishedwomen to its faculty" and to "maintain anextensive financial aid policy that will continueto attract a diverse student body."

Barber said in an interview yesterday she didnot consider her views on the issues to bepolitical. "These are not what I would callpolitical issues. They are moral issues," saidBarber. "You've got 26 women in a tenured facultyof 378 positions. It's time to look at things."

Harvard-nominated candidate Andrew F. Brimmer,a Washington, D.C. consultant and a former boardmember of the Federal Reserve System, expressconcern in his statement about falling enrollmentamong low and middle income students.

But Brimmer said he "would prefer not to have apolitical aspect of an election" and said hiscomments, made in response to an officialquestionnaire, were not intended to be political.

Pulitzer Prize-winning author FrancesFitzGerald '62, who endorses divestment in herstatement, said of the voter statements, "It'snice that people express what they're interestedin. It's not that I want the process to be acampaign among competing interests.