Intimacy Is Necessary

The staff, in writing its editorial on the Date Rape Task Force, argues that The Crimson in the past has always supported "open meetings." Because staff precedent has been in support of open Presidential Search Committee meetings, for example, so too should we call for open meetings of the date rape committee, staff members reason.

But it seems that in likening the closed meetings of the Date Rape Task Force to every other meeting, the male-dominated staff commits the same crime the committee members are trying to prevent the University itself from making.

Simply stated, date rape is not an issue that can be likened to academic dishonesty, as the Administrative Board tries to do, or to the Presdential Search as the staff does.

To the contrary, date rape is an issue that needs to be handled and discussed in a sensitive way and in a sensitive environment.

The staff mixes two issues in arguing for open meetings and the increased representation of men. What it fails to understand is that the former is just not a feasible setting for discussions in which members will not feel politically pressured not to speak their minds, and would result in a very educationally limiting setting.

The staff approaches the latter issue most unfairly. To imply that the committee has tried deliberately to keep out men is a blatant misrepresentation of the truth. To the contrary, it is something that the committee has tried to make up for--through its open forum last month, for example--without sacrificing the element of intimacy--not "secrecy"--that is essential to its mission of educating the administration about date rape.