Battle Lines Drawn In Ideological War

Once again the battle lines are being drawn for the debate which has become the residential life issue of the past two years.

As several house maters and first-year students continue to wage war against a proposal by Dean of the College L. Fred Jewett '57 to partially randomize next spring's house assignment lottery, they have also touched off a wide-ranging ideological debate about the very principles of diversity around which Harvard's undergraduate life revolves.

Jewett and a growing number of followers say the current system--which maximizes student choice--has resulted in a housing situation that is unacceptable at a school which strives for diversity. They cite a growing bulk of evidence that several houses have skewed populations of varsity athletes, Asian-Americans and other minority groups, and they say such living arrangements foster stereotyes and prejudice.

Last spring Jewett was forced to withdraw a proposal to randomly assign 25 percent of the spaces in eight houses when several masters refused to participate in the experiment.

And this fall, a group of first-year students has already gathered the support of 1171 members of the Class of '93 who oppose attempts to change the lottery.

But this year the dean has repeatedly asserted his authority to override master's opinions if he sees the need. Both President Derek C. Bok and Dean of Faculty A. Michael Spence have said they will back whatever proposal Jewett makes to them.

"I worry if a house gets to a situation where people are deterred from applying there because of perceptions that the population there would not welcome them," Jewett said in an interview this week. "The stereotypes are becoming more negative."

But leery of administrative attempts at the "social engineering" of residential life at Harvard, several masters say Jewett's proposal to randomly assign at least 50 percent of the spaces in all 12 houses is both unnecessary and futile. Such a move promises to make the houses more homogeneous and lessen their importance in the life of the College, they say.

And on a more personal level, even first-year students who have acknowledged the value of diversifying the houses say they are reluctant to become the "guinea pigs" of Jewett's experiment.

'A Community of Tolerance'

Insisting there is nothing wrong with students of similar interests living together, some masters and students argue that house life is especially rewarding when it offers an opportunity for people to form organized activities and support groups, such as the Lowell House Opera and the Adams House improvisational groups.

And the need for a critical mass of people with common interests is even more important to help "invisible minorities" create "a community of tolerance," says Adams House Master Robert J. Kiely.

Other masters say they feel the same way about the need to preserve student choices in selecting the environment in which they will spend three-fourths of their time at Harvard.

"Harvard College is stressful enough," says Eliot House Master Alan E. Heimert '49. "Students have a right to live in a situation that is most comfortable and least distracting."

Kiel and Heimert, the College's most senior masters, add that while certain groups indeed may be underrepresented in some houses, no group is unrepresented.

"Even now no house is totally homogeneous," says Heimert. "And I don't think anything prevents anyone from meeting all kinds of people."

In a Crimson poll last spring, Adams, Eliot and Kirkland House were named by students as the three most stereotyped houses at Harvard.

But even if several houses do have an imbalance of one group over another, some of the masters' opposition to the Jewett plan seems to stem from the fear that increasing the similarities among houses will decrease their overall importance to the life of the College.

As evidence, some point to Yale, where the housing system is completely random and the residential colleges allegedly no longer play an important role in student life. Instead, the housing situation at Yale has led to tightly-knit rooming groups and a lack of esprit de corps within each residential college as a whole, Heimert says.

Further, some of these dissenting masters argue that Jewett's plan is an attempt by the central administration to gain control over house life. Having each house essentially the same would allow the central administration to have interchangeable tutors, advisors and programs and would consequently lessen the authority of the masters.

But Jewett maintains that the present situation heightens first-year student anxiety over where they will live and fosters feelings of exclusion by some houses. And that must be changed, the dean insists.

Although he has not yet discussed the matter with masters formally, Jewett says he plans to send them a detailed report outlining the lack of diversity in some houses by providing specific data on student concentrations and activities within the houses.

But several masters have said that seeing the numbers on paper will likely not influence their position.

Politically Wise

Instead, most observers--including dissenting masters--characterize Jewett's current proposal as politically wise, and most agree his plan in some form will succeed this year.

In fact, some say he has already won a partial victory, as the debate now seems to be framed in terms of 100 percent random or nothing.

"I haven't met anybody who likes the idea of 50 percent," says James M. Harmon '93, the student leader of the first-year students' Committee Against Randomization. "People have said that Jewett just said 50 so that 100 percent would look better down the road--then he could implement the policy without being the one responsible for it."