Farewell, Radcliffe; Be Fair, Harvard

They were all smiles last Wednesday.

After a year of intense negotiations, Linda, Neil and Jeremy could breathe easy. The Radcliffe Question had finally been answered. Harvard will absorb the 120-year-old women's college (endowment, real estate and all), and turn it into an institute for advanced study.

"This is a cause for celebration," Radcliffe President Linda S. Wilson said. "This really is the fulfillment of a journey Harvard and Radcliffe undertook together," University President Neil L. Rudenstine added.

Not so fast.

The deal between Harvard and Radcliffe unveiled to the general public last Wednesday morning was a mouthful. And those who were kept in the dark for over a year (everyone but the big boys and girls, in other words) need some time to digest it.

At least two facts about last week's news are cause for skepticism. The first is that the "merger" was negotiated in complete secrecy. Even the Radcliffe staff was informed of the college's fate only last week. The Harvard and Radcliffe communities were presented with a fait accompli. And nobody likes those. Last Wednesday could have represented the culmination of a year-long campus-wide discussion on what is best for Radcliffe. Instead, we got a gleeful announcement from the top: "Hey, guys," they seemed to be saying. "Look what we did! Isn't it great>" Time will tell.

A second cause for skepticism about the merger is that Wilson is steeping down. If the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study is a step in the right direction, why doesn't Wilson want to be its leader? She told reporters last week that she is ready for a new project. Isn't the new Radcliffe a good one?

The relationship that existed between Harvard and Radcliffe until last Wednesday was often spoken of as a marriage. The analogy seemed to fit because the colleges co-existed on the same estate, sharing responsibility for us, their kids. Ironically, though, the real marriage seems only to have taken place last week. But on the surface, at least, it was still a 19th-century one: The woman gave up her name, formally relinquished custody of her children and brought a sizable dowry with her (in the form of a $200-million endowment and acres of prime Cambridge land).

The question now tripping off everyone's tongue is whether the Radcliffe Institute really will be a plus for women at Harvard. And nobody really knows the answer. What matters about Radcliffe's new status is not, contrary to student gospel, the future of the Radcliffe Union of Students, what will happen to the grants and externships Radcliffe administers, or even who signs whose diploma. What matters is that Harvard is now the only parent in town. And the way women feel here will be solely Harvard's responsibility.

In the spring of 1997, Dean of the Faculty Jeremy R. Knowles wrote me this in a fax: "I hope that in the coming years, the gender ratio in the College and on the faculty may in all fields approach unity...and that all admissions (to the College) and all appointments (to the Faculty) be gender blind." Two years later, women still comprise less than 50 percent of the student body, and the percentage of tenured women Faculty is still remarkably low at 13.4 percent, although up from 11.5 percent in 1997 and 9.6 percent in 1991.

The Harvard-Radcliffe merger is good in principle. 'Separate but equal' hasn't cut in this country for a long time. But in practice the story is somewhat different, for the simple reason that at Harvard men and women are not yet equal. This is still a predominantly male institution-in the administration, in the classrooms, and even on the social scene.

This reality has troubled me throughout my four years here, in part because I know I have benefited from it-even though I have not lacked for female role models here, including my mother, Susan, my thesis advisor, Seyla Benhabib, and my teachers and friends, Judy Murciano, Sandra Naddaff and Judy Vichniac. But I consider myself lucky, because the odds were against me as they are against every Harvard student.

Radcliffe becomes superfluous only when Harvard is adequately taking care of itself. And to be frank, I'm not convinced that time has yet arrived. Nevertheless, for reasons that will remain known only to a select few, Radcliffe is gone. So the burden of ensuring that Harvard becomes a more equal institution falls to Harvard itself. And from the final clubs to the top floor of University Hall, there is work to be done.

Over the last four years, first as a staff writer, then (and now) as a columnist, and finally as the editor of this page, I have tried to contribute to some of this work. But my time at Harvard is nearly through, and this is the last column I will write for The Crimson, a little newspaper that has taken up an unreasonable amount of my time and energy (and that, it must also be said, I love dearly).

Readers, farewell, and thank you for listening. May Harvard fare well in your company. Daniel M. Suleiman '99 is a social studies concentrator in Leverett House. This is his final column.