The Year in Review

Dispense RU-486 on Campus

Earlier this month, Harvard students learned that they can now receive the abortion drug RU-486 through a referral from University Health Services (UHS). The availability of RU-486 to Harvard students is a step in the right direction towards the greater availability of the drug. However, we urge UHS to rethink its decision not to dispense the pill at the Holyoke Center.

According to UHS Director David S. Rosenthal ’59, UHS has no plans now or in the future to distribute RU-486 at the Holyoke Center. As a result, under the current arrangements, women seeking RU-486 must be referred by UHS either to Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston or to the Planned Parenthood center in Brighton, the procedure currently followed by students seeking a surgical abortion.

The need for these referrals undermines the major advantage of the pill, because it does not allow women to receive RU-486 from their primary-care physician. Such an extremely difficult decision is best handled in the context of a familiar doctor-patient relationship, and the University should encourage any policy that can make such a decision a less painful experience for women.

A reversal of Harvard’s decision not to offer RU-486 in Holyoke Center would grant students additional privacy and one more avenue through which they can choose to have an abortion.

—Feb. 23, 2001

Rules to Reform

The Undergraduate Council elections are long over, and the new leadership is already in place. Nevertheless, we’d like to take a moment to reflect on last December’s election process. The council’s election commission should be lauded for their role in running a clean and fair election. Now is the time for the council to move forward to making sure that, within this stable framework, future elections can energize the campus electorate. This can be achieved by reforming the election rules in a few small ways.

The first and most glaring shortfall of the election rules is the miniscule $100 spending limit, which, combined with a “dollar-per-demerit” system, has left candidates running campaigns that have a very limited impact on campus. This leaves campaigns unable to generate significant amounts of positive energy around their platforms. One solution would be to simply double the spending limit, so that campaigns could reach more students. This investment is also justified by the fact that exciting campaigns inevitably generate interest for the council as a whole.

The point-deduction system for misplaced posters should also be reevaluated. If a candidate has 25 posters (of the hundreds that get hung each season) that are either covering that of another campaign, or are put up more than one time on a kiosk face or bulletin board, that candidate is disqualified from the race. The problem is that the rule does not acknowledge the fact that misplaced posters—especially those accidently misplaced by otherwise good-intentioned campaign volunteers—can be promptly removed without further damage to the election process.

Finally, it seems that some rules are meant to discourage innovation on the part of the participants. For example, candidates are barred from door-dropping campaign materials. Ironically, council candidates would distribute materials more pertinent to student life than the unwanted commercial solicitations distributed by Harvard Student Agencies.

The council’s election commission did an admirable job last December to ensure that the election was fair. Nevertheless, there is still room for improvement. Generating broad-based enthusiasm for the council campaigns is one step toward revitalizing the council itself.

—Jan. 22, 2001

Our Fifteen Cents' Worth

Today, the MTA’s successor, the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority (MBTA), raises subway fares from 85 cents to one dollar. Even at a dollar the fare will remain one of the lowest in the nation, and the T’s announcement of its first fare hike in almost a decade met only half-hearted protest from environmental and transportation advocacy groups.

And so, in the name of inevitable progress, fades one of the quotidian figures of life in Boston. Thousands of stickers on token booths will be scraped away; hundreds of thousands of commuters will slowly forget the multiples of 85 cents. The city’s quirky transportation system, its fares no longer quaintly nestled under the barrier of a dollar, rumbles into the 21st century.

—Sept. 18, 2000

Threskiornis aethiopicus

There are few places he hasn’t visited. He has been seen lounging in rural Appalachia, and perched proudly on piers along eastern seaboard. He has hunted for grubs in the marshlands of Nova Scotia; he has cavorted with royal seagulls from afar; he has flown atop the Great Wall; he has been tete-a-tete with distinguished journalists at The Washington Post’s Beijing Bureau; and, most recently, he has been seen circling Tiananmen Square.

We wouldn’t be surprised if Threski (short for Threskiornis aethiopicus) decided to remain in the Far East. During his frequent trips to 14 Plympton St., he has often been seen reading the Writings of Chairman Mao, copies of which are usually on hand in the offices of The Crimson’s editorial board. Ideology exerts a strong force on this bird; for an example one need only look to his famous 1953 visit to the Russian delegation in New York.

But Threski is also a temperamental bird and it is likely he will migrate toward other destinations. For his sake, this would be a good idea. Sources indicate that the poor fools on Bow Street have already hired cronies to traverse the sea and capture the errant bird, so that he can be resoldered atop the Lampoon Castle. Adding insult to injury, he would be forced to share his old prison with a shoddily constructed, fake plastic imposter.

For the time being, we wish our copper-feathered friend the best of luck. He’ll need it. Dodging the watchful eyes of the military (and the hapless pursuit of ’Poonsters) will be enough to keep him busy in the People’s Republic. How long he will remain there is uncertain.

—Jan. 22, 2001

The PSLM Must Go

We support a living wage for all of Harvard’s workers. But we cannot condone the recent tactics by which the Progressive Student Labor Movement (PSLM) has pursued its ends. The occupation of administrative offices in Massachusetts Hall was inappropriate and will likely prove ineffective, and it has set back the cause of a living wage at Harvard.

We do not want to set a precedent for the University to respond to a misconceived protest. However, we also believe that Harvard’s workers deserve a living wage. The University should not accept any quid pro quo for the protestors’ departure. But after they have left, the University should establish and maintain a policy of open dialogue with students and workers to inform its eventual—and we hope rapid—decision to enact a living wage.

—April 20, 2001

Abolish the Core

Over the last four days, we have documented the Core Program’s persistent flaws. Still, the goal of the Core—to provide students with a broad liberal arts education—is one that we support. A distribution requirement would better achieve these aims while avoiding the Core’s inflexibility.

We firmly believe that every Harvard student should be exposed to many approaches to knowledge. Yet we deny that the large, watered-down lecture classes that constitute the bulk of the Core accomplish this task. The College can expand students’ options without increasing requirements, allowing undergraduates to choose the liberal arts education that they deserve.

—Feb. 6, 2001

Gore for President

In recent weeks, world events have pushed the presidential campaigns out of the immediate public spotlight. Violence has resurfaced in the Middle East, and democratic reform seems promising in Yugoslavia. Environmental and health concerns have prompted the call for a multi-national response. Fueled by technologies that know no political borders, the economies of nations have become ever more intertwined.

Taken as a whole, such global events underscore the increasingly important presence of the United States within the global community. But, as Nov. 7 draws near, they also highlight a host of challenges that will confront our next president. Without Congress as a buffer, the president must handle global issues at the most intimate of levels. Such interaction requires a brand of leadership that can both bridge nation-states and acquiesce heads-of-state.

It is the presence of this leadership quality that most distinguishes the Democratic candidate from his Republican rival. And for this reason, we urge our peers to cast their vote for Al Gore ’69.

—Oct. 30, 2000

An Education Online

In a move that highlights the potential of the Internet to change the way the world thinks about education, MIT announced last week that it was putting materials for its nearly 2,000 courses on the Web. The 10-year project, called MIT OpenCourseWare, would allow anyone, anywhere in the world, to read lecture notes, try problem sets and browse syllabi for any of MIT’s courses. We hope that MIT’s courageous decision will be copied by other universities—especially Harvard—for the sake of those who will be able to learn from the far corners of the globe, as well as the universities’ students, who will benefit significantly from the project. Such a move would stimulate discussion and learning among scholars both on campus and abroad.

—April 9, 2001