Students' Rights Come First

Last December, when the campus witnessed the shameful spectacle of several Undergraduate Council representatives opposing a referendum on downsizing, The Crimson solidly endorsed the position that the council is responsible to the students' will. In my opinion, not enough has happened since to justify a reversal. I am saddened that a student newspaper would endorse the profoundly antidemocratic view that Harvard students are incapable of evaluating the good that student groups do--and that our council representatives, having won their titles with dubious support from an apathetic electorate, should make a decision to raise the termbill unilaterally.

The staff is grossly irresponsible in suggesting that students opposed to the termbill should simply refuse to participate. By that argument, there is no need for a termbill increase, as those who support it could instead write $30 checks to the council treasury. Similarly, if no students would be harmed by a hike in a voluntary termbill, the council should maximize its revenue by raising the fee until it could no longer convince students to pay. By portraying the termbill as a purely individual affair, the staff forgets that it represents a common obligation that we as students and beneficiaries are honor-bound, although not required, to bear.

For the very reason that its payment is a community responsibility, the termbill must not be taken out of the hands of the community of students to determine. The council cannot pretend to exercise this kind of representative power; the students have not endowed it so and did not vote for their representatives with such issues in mind. I believe a termbill hike would be a good thing, and I believe that the council deserves the ability to raise the fee along with inflation--but I do not believe that to assume such powers without student input through a referendum would be a responsible act.

If the staff is worried about the looming irrelevance of the council, it should not endorse a measure that will only marginalize the body further as students who have already stopped voting in the council's elections now stop contributing as well. If the staff is concerned with student welfare, it should not endorse a horrific precedent whereby the results of a student referendum can be ignored whenever it looks like a good idea at the time. The council's responsibility is to act on student preferences, not to disregard them; if it has forgotten that role, then Dean of the College Harry R. Lewis '68 and the Faculty should keep it in mind and refuse to impose a termbill hike on an unconsulted student body.

--STEPHEN E. SACHS