Student Access Does Not Equal Safety Risk

Why were we ever so optimistic? In stalling a proposal to expand keycard access among the Houses at last week's meeting of the Committee on House Life, the house masters proved once again that they are more beholden to their own provincial reasoning than to the safety and convenience concerns of those who know the situation best: the students.

The newest roadblock the masters have thrown up to universal keycard access is the College's policy that there be two locked doors between the street and every student's room. Fine, the two-door policy sounds good on admissions tours, and seems to make some safety sense. But who ever called for the locks to be removed? Our point--the students' point--all along has been that giving all Harvard students access to an entryway door does not diminish the degree to which that door can be considered locked. If anything, because we will be naturally both more likely to question students entering without ID and less likely to prop doors for friends or pizza delivery people, universal access would in no way make the first of those two doors any less secure.

If you care about safety, convenience and student choice, contact your house masters and Dean of the College Harry R. Lewis '68 (lewis@fas.harvard.edu) and inform them that their precious two-door policy is not at stake here. Remind them that Harvard students like you are more interested in visiting friends and forming study groups than in stealing other students' belongings. And tell them you've been offended by their continued lack of respect for the student voice and their weak delay tactics.

Is this going to be the year for universal keycard access? Only, it seems, if we make it happen by talking back to those in power. Let's do it now, while the issue is still on the table and the administration still claims to be listening.