Protesters Lack Respect

The male students who were on the steps of Widener Library yesterday morning did not only look like fools, but they were blatantly making a mockery of the grape boycott. If students do not support the boycott, that is up to them and their own judgments, but to insult those of us who do support the boycott by literally making a mockery of human rights within an institution of higher learning is unacceptable.

At that moment, I was ashamed to be a Harvard student. I was not only offended by the actions of these students, but much worse, I was hurt in this day and age and at this prestigious university, male students could stand dressed as women screaming and supporting the continual dehumanization of grape pickers in California.

Students should vote as they please today for whatever they think is just. But how can we ignore, for example, the fact that in Earlimart, Calif., a town surrounded by grape fields, the childhood cancer rate is 1200 percent of the national rate? How can we dehumanize the value of these grape pickers' lives. I am tired of people ignoring and making a mockery of the tremendous violations of human rights in our own country.

This is intolerable. --Monica M. Ramirez '01