What Good Government Isn't

GOOD NEWS came to the University's more than 200,000 alumni last week when voting packets arrived for this year's Board of Overseers election. In years past aspiring overseers, all of whom were approved by the University administration, filled the election packets with praise for their alma mater. This year, however, many of the candidates used election statements to take positions on such issues as financial aid, divestment and increasing the number of women in Harvard's various faculties.

The packets illustrate that last year's insurgent candidates for positions on the board did more than momentarily disrupt the complacency of a group that stopped overseeing decades ago. The insurgents, one of whom gained election, established that governing Harvard does not have to be exclusively about affirming the status quo.

While divestment remains the most pressing issue before the Overseers, this year's prodivestment candidates deserve credit for their progressive stances and apparent willingness to take action on a broad array of issues. That several of the 12 University-approved candidates used their election statements to proclaim positions on divestment and to comment on other substantial issues indicates a dissatisfaction with the unsubstantive campaigns of the past. Perhaps the time has ended when running Harvard was the exclusive affair of seven white men on the Corporation and those who thought precisely like them.

The administration provides a clear suggestion that this might be so with it's objections to what it calls a "politicization" of the Board of Overseers. The administration's idea of good government is government by those who have always run things. It does not like to see elections sullied by ungentile discussions of issues. Instead, it prefers contests in boosterism.

Votes for pro-divestment candidates are not simply votes for divestment. Support for the slate tells those who govern Harvard that the concerns of alumni, faculty, staff and students cannot be treated with indifference.