Swat Schkolnick's Suit

To The Editors of The Crimson:

When the pilgrims set foot upon Plymouth Rock, their purpose was not to establish a society free from discrimination. Rather, they came to America to practice their own particular brand of intolerance. History repeats itself, and in Lisa Schkolnick's suit against the Fly Club, we see puritanical intolerance reenacted in all its irony and hypocracy.

What sins have the members of the Fly Club committed to bring down upon themselves the righteous wrath of Ms. Schkolnick and Harvard Law School Professor Alan Dershowitz? The club has no affiliation with the University Ms. Schkolnick supports with her tuition. The activities of the members involve no lawbreaking and take place within the confines of the building. Even the supposed benefits which the club denies Ms. Schkolnick because of her gender hold no appeal for her. She admittingly brings her suit against the Fly Club without any care for what the Club specifically offers its members.

In truth what so disturbs Ms. Schkolnick and Mr. Dershowitz is that deep within the shrouded confines of the Fly Club, people are thinking thoughts of which Ms. Schkolnick and Mr. Dershowitz do not approve. People are expressing opinions which Ms. Schkolnick and Mr. Dershowitz do not like. The Boston Globe reports that Ms. Schkolnick's true purpose in suing the Fly Club is to destroy the "attitudes they [the final clubs] perpetuate..." She and Mr. Dershowitz feel that the clubs create an atmosphere which breeds discriminatory instincts, that these instincts are harmful to society, and that, in the name of tolerance, the state is justified in forcibly wiping these instincts out.

I agree with Ms. Schkolnick and Mr. Dershowitz that views supporting class or sex or race privilege are almost always untenable. I agree with Ms. Schkolnick and Mr. Deshowitz that such views need to be fought. Where I disagree with them and what I find so hypocritical about their position is the way in which they attack attitudes they find intolerant. They do not try to persuade the final clubs to admit women. They do not try to convince the Harvard community to avoid the clubs until the clubs see the error of their ways. They make no effort to establish their own, open club and to demonstrate the superiority of their point of view. Finally, despite their own certainty in the rightness of their views, Ms. Schkolnick and Mr. Dershowitz refuse simply to ignore the clubs, whose activities have no real impact on their lives, and to let them die a natural death. Rather, Ms. Schkolnick, with her First Amendment expert at her side, asks the state to step in and snuff out private associations which might foster attitudes that she finds "obnoxious."

In the Globe article, Ms. Schkolnick states that she is out to change Harvard traditions left over from the "bad old days." What she and Mr. Dershowitz do not realize is that they themselves personify a "bad old" tradition which predates Harvard by several millenia: the misguided zealot. Waving the banner of liberalism, Ms. Schkolnick and Mr. Dershowitz want the state to stamp out ideas which differ from their own. Raising the cry of liberty, they want the state to suppress private activities which might result in opinions they dislike. To achieve their ends, they are drawing upon a more recent tradition, familiar to Massachusetts and to the Puritans-the witch trail. Today, Ms. Schkolnick and Mr. Dershowitz are trying to hang the members of the Fly Club. Who they'll want to hang tomorrow is anybody's guess, but none of us should feel too secure. Bob Zafft, HLS '90