Bok's a Good Politician

THE staff position both misconstrues the job of a university president and naively overestimates the difference a politician will make in an institution so ingrained in tradition as Harvard is.

Although administrators should listen to their students, they have a greater commitment to those who have worked to build their university. Listening to activists and taking their viewpoints seriously is not the same as agreeing with them, as the staff implies. While Harvard should not ignore ethical concerns in investment, the administration should not be faulted simply because it refuses to divest. Disagreement with the mean to an end does not mean disagreement with the end, as some of the three million Black South Africans who have lost their jobs to divestment might tell the staff.

In addition, universities do not exist to promote political agendas which, despite the fervor with which activists and idealists espouse them, are just temporary answers to long-term problems. University administrators should consider such issues, but in the context of long-term values and without political partisanship.

The praise the staff gives Bok also misses the mark. To see evidence of the "good liberal" in Bok in his defense of Harvard against Allan D. Bloom and against federal budget cuts is to misread the President's motives. He obviously has a vested interest in maintaining federal subsidies for higher education and in retaining the prestige of his university. Such defense means nothing more than that Bok is a shrewd politician.

It is predictable that those who hold the staff's views will decry Bok's lack of activism over the last two decades. But it was terribly naive for The Crimson of 20 years ago to think Bok would have been chosen if he were anything except a politician willing to sacrifice "the right values" for a drink of the intoxicating wine of power and prestige. When Harvard appoints Bok's successor, let us hope The Crimson will have gained some cynicism about the difference between what politicians say and what they do.