Big Daddy

As I near the end of my first year at Harvard, I'm beginning to get tired of Annenberg's entrees. But while I've lamented the regular appearance of chicken fingers, chicken a la king, chickwiches and the like, I have seldom suspected that the menu's monotony was detrimental to my personal nutrition. With caloric breakdowns on display and nutrition fun fact cards serving as centerpieces, I always knew the good people at Harvard Dining Services took solicitous interest in my health.

When I went to get some soda this past week, I realized that Annenberg's interest in my well-being had spread to new areas. Sitting atop the dispenser, a sign admonished me not to fill any containers with soda for later consumption. Lest I suppose that Annenberg was being miserly, the sign insisted that this measure was enacted for health reasons.

This precaution recalls other ostensibly health-related measures from earlier in the year. Upon arriving at Harvard, many of us first-years were accosted on our way out of Annenberg with sandwiches. This sandwich smuggling, we were told, was dangerous because naive first years that we were, preoccupied with our studies, would forget the contraband in our pockets, only remembering to eat when it had spoiled. If that claim seemed dubious, this new beverage initiative strains credibility still further. Coffee, soda and juice do not often become toxic.

If the people at Annenberg have wrongly cited health concerns, they are not alone. Dean of the College Harry R. Lewis '68 favors a second health measure, advanced during last week's Committee on House Life (COHL) meeting.

Lewis recently proposed banning smoking in all residential houses to protect the health of smokers, students contemplating becoming smokers, and their roommates. Lewis hopes that a ban would persuade smokers to quit and dissuade non-smokers from picking up the habit. Wary of objections, Lewis believes his plan is palatable because "there's a lot of sentiment that would favor a complete [prohibition of] smoking among students." Should campus support for a ban not suffice, Lewis adds, "the general trend of society would support doing this."

To be sure, Lewis' proposal does not mirror Annenberg's actions exactly. For a start, there are legitimate health concerns related to smoking, whereas sandwiches and soft drinks prompt no substantive concerns. Irrespective of this difference, however, both initiatives contribute to the "infantilizing" of Harvard students: first-years cannot be trusted not to eat mayonnaise-laden sandwiches that have been neglected for a week in their pockets; all undergraduates cannot decide whether or not to smoke without the College's assistance.

Having trusted Harvard to be the right environment for us to grow as scholars and as individuals, we now find a paternalistic administration eager to curb our liberties. One's decision to smoke and even one's decision whether or not to tolerate a roommate's smoking are under attack. As Eric M. Nelson '99, chair of the Undergraduate Council's Student Advisory Committee, described it in the Crimson article which recounted the COHL meeting, "Students are on their way to becoming adults, and it's important that they be able to make these sort of choices."

Lewis' rationale that his proposal rides on a wave of student and societal sentiment is disturbing. If the ban is for health reasons, then Lewis should only invoke some of the irrefutable scientific facts about smoking. By referring to social sentiment and precedent, Lewis suggests that colleges should acquiesce to these things instead of libertarian sentiment. Yet I had believed (and hoped) that colleges might be somewhat countercultural. A ban on smoking shouldn't become right merely because it is politically palatable; for the same reason, the College shouldn't amend its position on affirmative action in response to Proposition 209's success in California.

The Houses, we are told, are to become our homes away from home. Yet forcing smokers to stand outside their doors to have a cigarette tarnishes this ideal. Working smokers congregate outside their office buildings for a smoke break, not outside their homes. In dire need of someone to make a cogent defense of the right to smoke in the Houses, we find critics with unsatisfying, pragmatic objections. Outgoing Lowell House Master William H. Bossert '59 only objected to the policy on the grounds that it would be difficult to enforce and "lots of people standing outside the House, smoking" would sully his House's image.

Lamentably, libertarian sentiment has given way to aesthetic preference and paternalism. Perhaps the Harvard administration just didn't think that we looked particularly scholarly munching on sandwiches as we crossed the Yard.

David F. Browne '01 lives in Wigglesworth Hall.