Radcliffe Group Reacts To Montreal Shootings

With a mixture of anger and horror, the Radcliffe Union of Students (RUS) rallied yesterday to respond to the brutal murder of 14 women last week by a lone, armed man at the University of Montreal.

Declaring a "day of mourning," the women's group placed posters throughout campus calling on undergraduates to wear black clothing today in memory of the slain women.

"It will be a way that people who are horrified and outraged can deal with it for themselves," said Annabella C. Pitkin '90, RUS secretary. "It also shows our solidarity with the victims."

Performed in concert with students throughout the "Seven Sister" traditionally all-female colleges, the RUS memorial occurs after Wednesday's assault on a science class in Montreal, allegedly by Marc Lepine, 25.

Lepine, an unemployed man with a history of academic setbacks, apparently ushered male students from the room, yelled "You're all a bunch of feminists" and began shooting at remaining prisoners, the Associated Press reported. Besides the 14 dead, Lepine wounded nine women and four men before killing himself.

RUS Co-President Holly R. Zellweger '90 said yesterday that after the "brutal misogynistic attack,...men should ask themselves how a man's psychology may be encouraged by society to allow him to do something like that."

For men, "this should be a time of reflection for how they treat women in their own lives," said Laura A. Rosenbury '92, Radcliffe representative to an annual Seven Sisters conference of women student leaders.

But RUS members said the slayings did not only constitute a women's issue, "Men should be as outraged as women about the violence against women in society," Pitkin said.

"We don't want to forget the 14 lives by makinga bigger thing out of this," Rosenbury added.

RUS and the Committee on Women's Studies willhost a forum titled "Violence Against Women: ATeach-In on the University of Montreal Tragedy:What Does it Mean for Women?" at Adams House earlynext week, Zellweger said. Professor of RomanceLanguages and Literatures Alice A. Jardine andProfessor of Biology Ruth Hubbard are likely tospeak at the forum, she said.

The professors could not be reached for commentyesterday.

"With all the oppression that women have feltduring the years, it seems like women should bethe ones going out and doing it... but it is notsomething that women would do," said Ruth A.Potee, president of the Wellesley College studentcouncil