Sour Grapes at the Undergraduate Council

I am writing in response to your March 26 article regarding a meeting of the Undergraduate Council's "Sour Grapes contingent" to discuss the role of women on the Council. I refer to the Melissa Garza-Jennifer Grove faction as the "Sour Grapes contingent" because, whereas they have collectively been defeated in four races for Council Vice-chair, their frustration on the U.C. is more a result of their electoral misfortune than over valid grievances.

I am disappointed that Garza and Grove used a public forum to help confirm students' preconceptions of the U.C: that student services are subordinated to internal political struggle and intrigue. These preconceptions are only buttressed by the Crimson's biased coverage: to place an article on the Council's major success of the year (the sold out Adam Sandler concert in Sanders Theater, which benefited 1,200 students) behind a superficial issue created by an insignificant minority of U.C. members is perplexing. Social events such as the Adam Sandler concert are not only inherently valuable because they are entertaining; I would like to think that there are residual effects of uniting in a single location (other than an Ec 10 lecture) over 1,000 Harvard students. I truly regret the fact that Harvard's only daily "news" paper values divisiveness over unity.

The tactics of the "Sour Grapes contingent" runs antithetical to the objectives of undergraduate government. Exclusive meetings (the attendees of which are determined on the basis of gender) perpetuates divisiveness within the Council, thereby paralyzing its efforts to provide a coherent voice and unifying agent for the student body.

Furthermore, their methods of subversive communication are inconsistent with the ends they seek (an all-inclusive Undergraduate Council) and resemble hypocrisy rather than fruitful dialogue. To quote a recent memorandum distributed to all Council women, "Only female U.C. members are allowed to join us...to take part in continuing conversations about what kind of constructive action women can take to improve our role in the Undergraduate Council." If a similar memorandum were given to Council men, it would be labeled exclusionary and a manifestation of the so-called "Old Boys Network." Thus, certain Council women are practicing a certain type of behavior which they themselves verbally condemn. There is a word to describe this: hypocrisy.

Finally, the fact that these meetings are only open to women ignores the fact that male members of the Council may have similar concerns and/or be interested in gender-specific issues. Believe it or not, male participation may even enhance the discussion. To automatically disregard the validity of an entire gender's point of view is blatantly closed-minded. There is a word to describe this: discriminatory.

I want to emphasize that all this noise is resounding from the dissatisfaction of an extremely small faction of the Undergraduate Council; at most three "concerned" Council women are fabricating an issue for the purpose of either stirring up controversy or enhancing their own electoral chances (If their true goal were to eradicate "elitism" pense, then why do they engage in practices embodying exclusivity?) Because it is such a small faction, I hope that students do not generalize and assume that such behavior is commonplace within the Undergraduate Council. The majority of Council members, including the present leadership, eschew the fact that a small faction is attempting to splinter our undergraduate government into interest groups.

Assuming that the women of the Undergraduate Council have legitimate concerns, then I suggest the following solution: if the "Sour Grapes" would devote less time whining and more time working on constructive Council business, then the results they seek would be more forthcoming. David L. Hanselman, Jr. '94   Vice-Chair