IOP Poll Should Spur Dialogue on Race

One of the saddest paradoxes about racial issues is that their influence is ubiquitous but their substance is regularly misunderstood. Unfortunately, a lack of interest in honest dialogue on racial issues on the part of the administration and an equally disturbing apathy on the part of the students has undermined what might otherwise have been a very powerful poll on campus race relations.

The Crimson and Institute of Politics (IOP) poll, conducted in early December, asked 530 students 22 questions that probed several issues including ethnic studies, randomization, self-segregation and admissions. It also asked students to rate their "Harvard experience" and whether race enhances it. The survey claims to reveal a campus that is "significantly divided along racial lines." The results show a demand both for increased Faculty diversity and for commitment from the administration to promoting a multi-cultural environment.

Unfortunately the most revealing and disturbing question was the one which polled student interest in campus race relations. Ninety percent of poll respondents were either "not concerned" or only "somewhat concerned" about race relations at Harvard today. This unfortunate percentage places the results of the poll in an uncertain light, since uninterested respondents have a greater potential to be misinformed respondents. However, the responses recorded therein offer our campus a starting point to explore race relations here. By sponsoring the poll, the IOP puts itself in a better position to combat misinformation by entering and inspiring the badly needed discourse on campus race relations.

However, when the IOP first attempted to conduct the poll and to raise awareness of racial issues, it met with perplexing resistance from the administration. Administrators, believing that the survey questions were dubiously worded, requested that the IOP not conduct a poll which had not been approved by the College's Committee on Undergraduate Research Projects. Evidently, Dean of Students Archie C. Epps III and the Committee on Undergraduate Research Projects, which at one point decided to scuttle the poll, had concerns about exacerbating racial divisions--concerns which seem secondary to promoting reasonable and honest discussion. The survey was ultimately conducted through The Crimson. If the administration is going to earn a better grade than the "B-" it received from students with regard to its efforts in the realm of race relations, then it will have to provide student groups with more flexibility to discuss racial issues.

While the poll seems to be the result of conscientious planning and sound methodologies, it is undermined by the fact that no one seems to be able to sustain student interest in race and by an administration which appears to be more concerned with avoiding campus division than with honest and reasonable racial dialogue. By now, the cry for increased dialogue at Harvard and beyond must sound like that familiar broken record. Hopefully, this poll will inspire students to engage in thoughtful discussion racial issues and the administration to let student groups lead the way. We look forward to seeing the IOP build upon this valuable idea of surveying students by following up with discussions of campus race relations.