Ethnic Studies Must Be Resisted

Like others here for Junior Parents' Weekend, I was greeted at the Science Center by a demonstration for ethnic studies. I set up a one person counter demonstration, and shouted at them (good naturedly) that they should use their time at Harvard to learn something useful. This was satisfying for me, as I have been getting angry at home reading my newspaper about ethnic and gender chauvinists of all types; it was fun to be able to get angry with them to their faces.

On reflection, I realized there are many worthwhile majors that are not necessarily useful. What had been upsetting me was that Harvard should be a place where students learn to transcend narrow-minded ethnic and gender prejudices, rather than where they are reinforced or created.

I hope that while these students are here they learn that what is important about people is their ideas, capabilities, character--not what ethnic group they happen to have been born into.

Hopefully, Harvard will continue to resist ethnic studies, which would be going in exactly the wrong direction. Thomas C. Horne '67

The writer was a Crimson editor from 1965 to 1967.