Attack on Jay was Unwarranted

Your story on the election of a chair for the Undergraduate Council Reform Committee (news story, March 19) reported, without any context, inflammatory, unfair and inaccurate remarks made by former council president Robert M. Hyman '98 about the candidacy of William M. Jay '98. Minimal research on the part of your reporter would have made clear just how off the mark Hyman's attacks on Jay were.

Hyman announced in the question-and-answer period that he was concerned the Reform Committee would handicap itself by electing someone who would "politicize" the committee. He went on to suggest that unnamed groups were attempting to pack the chair election for sinister purposes.

Hyman claimed that a candidate had recently posted a newsgroup article claiming to be the "candidate of the Right." The implied accusation against Jay, the only candidate who is a political conservative, is not supported by reality. A few days before the meeting, a post was made on the newsgroup alt.groppi noting that an e-mail had been sent to both the BGLSTA and Perspective mailing lists accusing right-wingers of having attempted to take over the Reform Committee and encouraging liberal students to oppose this effort. Jay responded with a post explaining why conservatives would want to have the council: "It's delicious with a little butter."

He then asked, "So does this mean that'll look bad if I run for chair?" and signed the post "The Right Wing." This is not evidence of any sort of conservative plot; Hyman's claim to the contrary shows him to be either humor-impaired or disingenuous.

The larger issue is that singling out Jay for bringing politics into the election is unfair and absurd. Hyman claimed that he would have treated Perspective President Emeritus Jedediah S. Purdy '97 in the same way, but Hyman's own words at the election contradict his feigned impartiality.

Jay's opponent in the runoff, Avery W. Gardiner '97, is an outspoken liberal. More important, Gardiner was campaign manager for Council President Lamelle D. Rawlins '99. Gardiner's liberal politics and partisan interest in the council are no reason to disqualify her, in my opinion. Rather, they speak well of her energy and commitment to improving student government. But if Jay's strong opinions on council affairs and politics are a disqualifying factor, then Gardiner should also have been disqualified. Your reporter did not bother to ask Hyman why he was singling out Jay for criticism.

Furthermore, as Hyman must have known and your reporter should have figured out, the Harvard Republican Club was not the only campus organization to encourage members to attend the meeting. Numerous organizations, left, right and center, sent out e-mails encouraging members to attend. Several council members remarked to me on the large numbers of IOP-affiliated students who signed up for the Reform Committee.

Is this evidence that Gardiner (the former chair of the IOP's Student Advisory Committee) attempted to pack the vote? Of course not. Fairness, however, would seem to require the same scrutiny for Gardiner and the IOP as was given to Jay and the HRC.

Hyman's attack on Jay is unfortunate because it undermines the credibility of the committee by injecting a note of partisanship where none exists. All three candidates for chair said that they saw no reason for politics to enter into the work of the committee; Hyman is doing a grave disservice to the committee by trying to make it appear partisan. The "fears" Hyman expressed at the election, and then eagerly repeated in an interview with your reporter after the election, are all-too-likely to become a self-fulfilling prophesy. Perhaps this is Hyman's goal, but I see no reason to humor him. --Douglas M. Gordon '97, president emeritus, The Harvard Salient