Fiddling While Rome Burns

A friend of mine recently told me a humorous, if sorry, anecdote. She was walking through the Science Center gates on her way to class and, looking at the alluring poster-covered brick, decided to hang up a poster she had in her bag. She pulled out the poster and some tape and, probably whistling some little ditty innocently to herself, began to hang up the green construction paper--cut a piece of tape, smooth out the corners of the paper--until, BAM! Nailed by Harvard University Police officers--and fined twenty five dollars.

The offense: hanging up a poster on a wall not sanctioned for postering. The fact that there were so many other posters hung up that it was nearly impossible to see any of the original wall was irrelevant. It is Harvard-illegal to hang anything anywhere but the Yard kiosks, the Science Center tack-boards and the House bulletin boards, and those who disregard this law must be prosecuted. The lesson my friend, the offender, gleaned from the whole experience was simple: look carefully before hanging up posters--the Harvard police are on patrol.

After thinking about her story for a little while, I actually came to a somewhat different conclusion. Although I will certainly look both ways before hanging posters up in illegal areas, there is something much more serious at stake in this tale. While the Science Center gates--and my friend--were being scrupulously observed in case of some illicit activity, people are being held up in front of Lamont library and attacked in the Cambridge Common in the middle of the day. Although I see nothing inherently wrong with the police officers enforcing Harvard's policy about proper decorum for postering, it appears as though guarding Harvard's bricks is more important than protecting Harvard's students. The irony of this juxtaposition is significant not because fining my friend was wrong but because the postering stringency serves to highlight the failure of more important security measures.

Over the past few months, and especially in recent weeks, there have been a host of attacks on students all over campus, beginning at one end with the attack on the river side of Mather House and spreading all the way to the other side, near the Cambridge Common. These attacks are becoming so regular that I have begun to disregard the police advisory bulletins that get hung (illegally, perhaps?) on Mather's walls in response to the most recent incident. And students are not the only ones being harmed. On November 22, a homeless man was stabbed by an as-yet-unidentified 5'8" white man. The homeless man died on November 27 from injuries sustained during the stabbing. All these events have fostered a sense of increased insecurity on campus, and this, too, is incredibly troubling.

It is time for the University to step up its security measures. This past year, new blue phones were installed in different locations around campus; many of the houses are now sponsoring running buddy systems so that no one need ever run alone; and campus police stations are being added. These are solid measures to counter the recent proliferation of attacks. However, they are insufficient. Shuttle buses still run infrequently during the night and not at all after three in the morning. Despite the recent increase, there are still not enough emergency blue phones. And I never see a police officer around at night when I am walking home alone from a friend's room or the library. (Maybe I should try hanging up a poster on a lamp post.)

I am heartened by the election of Lamelle Rawlins to the Undergraduate Council presidency; one of her posters sang: "Vote because you want to feel safe on campus." Her strong record on issues of campus security and her powerful voice regarding safety concerns speak well both for the attention these issues will receive in campus discourse and, hopefully, for the changes we will soon see in campus life. It is nice to know that consideration will be paid to security concerns beyond the world of construction paper and tape.

Talia Milgrom-Elcott's column appears on alternate Saturdays.