Quincy Residents Start New Tolerance Group

A group of 14 Quincy House residents has formed a twice monthly forum to celebrate in-House diversity and promote tolerance across racial, ethnic, sexual and religious lines.

Founded last month, Everyone in Quincy United Across All Lines (EQUAAL) is "dedicated to promoting acceptance, tolerance and respect" by "providing a forum in which to celebrate our differences, whether they be racial, religious, gender, sexual, physical, socioeconomic...or otherwise," according to a letter sent to Quincy residents.

EQUAAL steering committee members said yesterday they are organizing a series of roundtable discussions of issues of diversity. EQUAAL also plans to sponsor guest speakers and organize diversity-related outings. All meetings are open to the Harvard community.

"EQUAAL was started by discussions by people in the House, with race relations in mind, to take a proactive approach," said Angela N. Romans, assistant to the Quincy House master and a member of the steering committee. "But EQUAAL has become much more than that. We are about diversity in all its aspects, the issues of difference which affect us as a community."

Timothy P. McCarthy '93, also a member of the steering committee, said that EQUAAL was established because Harvard has neglected the tensions created by the diversity of its student body.

"My feeling is that Harvard, in general, tends to be status quo, waiting for tensions to build up and reach a boiling point before dealing with them," McCarthy said, "We want the group to deal with issues before they reach the boiling point."

McCarthy said that EQUAAL has tentative plans to sponsor a speech on different aspects of sexuality and a discussion on Latin-American culture.

"We're more aimed towards discussion...before bringing in speakers," McCarthy said.

EQUAAL has held tables on the ethnic aspects of celebrating Columbus Day inthe U.S. and on gender issues involved inTuesday's presidential election. At the end ofNovember, the group will organize an outing to seeVisiting Lecturer Spike Lee's movie "Malcolm X,"to be followed by a roundtable discussion.

A bulletin board in the Quincy lobby will serveas a communication center for EQUAAL issues.

"We all feel that in the country at largeissues of difference keep coming up," Romans said."We feel we can make an impact by starting a chainof dialogue in the house.

A bulletin board in the Quincy lobby will serveas a communication center for EQUAAL issues.

"We all feel that in the country at largeissues of difference keep coming up," Romans said."We feel we can make an impact by starting a chainof dialogue in the house.