No Wild Promises From Studious Outsiders

When Jason L. Lurie ’05 spoke out at an Undergraduate Council meeting last month against giving funding to the Harvard-Radcliffe Christian Fellowship (HRCF) on the grounds that it requires its officers to affirm their faith, he didn’t mean to incite the biggest controversy of the council presidential campaign.

“You know the Muppets when everything’s going wrong and Kermit throws his hands in the air like this?” he says, waving his arms in frustration.

On Nov. 17, Lurie argued the council could lose its tax-exempt status if it awarded grants to student groups such as HRCF—which, unlike Hillel, the Harvard Islamic Society and the Catholic Student Association—formally require that students seeking leadership positions make a statement of faith.

The council set aside its grants to HRCF and the Harvard Asian Baptist Student Koinonia (HABSK) for future consideration, later voting to award the money to HABSK but tabling the grant for HRCF. Lurie has not been forgiven by members of Harvard’s Christian community, who have called his charges of discrimination unfounded and misleading and have angrily denounced his candidacy for the council presidency.

“It’s dangerous for a person whose agenda is to silence a group of people to hypocritically hide behind free speech,” says Benjamin D. Grizzle ’03, a member of Christian Impact.

In addition to a heated debate over the Harvard Secular Society (HSS) e-mail list between HSS members and members of evangelical Christian groups, Christians sounded off on Lurie over their own group lists and in letters to The Crimson.

But Lurie and his running mate, Alexander S. Misono ’04, say the issue of non-discrimination is just one of many that distinguish them from the crowded field of candidates vying for leadership of the council.

The two science concentrators from Cabot House want to reduce what they consider extravagant spending on the council’s own operations and allocate more of the council’s budget to student groups.

Though Lurie is serving as a council representative this year, he distances himself from what he calls the “council mindset” and criticizes insiders on the council for being resistant to change.

Lurie, an irreverent Demon editor, and Misono, a Harvard-Radcliffe Orchestra violinist, bring an academic rather than political bent to the council race, which they criticize as fraught with overblown promises.

“If we promise things we can’t carry out, we won’t have respect and dignity, and we’ll become the ineffective group that everyone thinks we are,” Lurie says.

Feuding With the Fellowship

Lurie gained both supporters and critics when he argued last month that the council should not fund HRCF.

His stance earned him the official endorsement of HSS, the group where Lurie serves as vice president of communications.

“We decided to endorse him because he’s the only candidate to look into secular issues on campus,” says HSS President Patrick T. Smith ’04. “Any private organization has a right to set its own rules. We’re not objecting to the existence of the group itself, just the fact that the UC’s funding it from public student funds.”

The council awards tens of thousands of dollars per year to student groups using money from the $35 activities fee students pay on their termbill. A clause in the council’s constitution prohibits the council from giving money to groups that discriminate. To gain recognition from the council, student groups also have to sign an agreement pledging to follow the clause.

HRCF allows any student to become a member, but does require its officers to affirm that they are Christians, according to Prisca E. Shrewsbury ’03, a member of the group’s executive board.

“We don’t feel that his charges that we’re just a discriminatory group in general are really founded,” Shrewsbury says. “We’re a group that makes every effort to be diverse and to be welcoming to every person on campus who would like to be a member.”

She says its open membership policy satisfies the requirements of the Handbook for Students. It is important for the group’s officers to be Christian because they lead Bible study and prayer, according to Shrewsbury.

While HRCF is not taking an official stance on Lurie’s campaign, executive board member Lara M. Bushak ’03 criticizes Lurie for raising the sensitive issue at the council meeting without first contacting HRCF and allowing the group to clarify its position.

“He’s not exactly trying to uphold the purposes of student clubs, and it seems like he might be pushing his own agenda a little bit, so I wouldn’t feel comfortable voting for him as president,” Bushak says.

Other Christians, like Grizzle, have been more vocal, pointing to Lurie’s penchant for making fun of Christianity (his website cites evangelical Christians as his “favorite group to mock”) as a reason to believe he is anti-Christian.

On Friday, Lurie added a disclaimer to his website in response to what he called “vicious postings” in his guestbook: “This entire page and everything on it is a JOKE. It is SATIRE. It is NOT TO BE TAKEN SERIOUSLY. I just wanted to be clear on that because some people are stupid and can’t tell the difference between humor and not-humor.”

Lurie says he thinks religious groups fill a niche on campus as long as they have a policy of inclusion.

“I’m not saying I’m going to get all these groups off campus,” Lurie says. “That’s not what I want to do.”

Agreeing to Disagree

Lurie and Misono are friends who admit that they have differences on some issues, including the HRCF controversy. Misono says he has no official position on the issue but says he encourages “healthy discussion.”

Lurie says their disagreements only make their partnership stronger.

“If we can work out a compromise between ourselves, it’s more likely to be accepted by more people,” he says.

Misono says he supports many of Lurie’s ideas, which he feels aren’t represented by the other tickets.

A veteran of the Harvard music community, Misono says he wants to focus on the arts as his primary platform.

He has served as assistant conductor in HRO, a director of the summer HARMONY program and an assistant music director for the Lowell House Opera. Hailing from Cleveland, Ohio, Misono says he hopes after graduation to attend conducting school in his parents’ native Japan.

Though Misono has never served on the council, he says his leadership experience in the arts would make him an ideal complement to Lurie.

“Conducting is very related to the UC,” he says. “You have to stand up there with 100 people in front of you, and you have to get them to do what you want to do and agree with your vision.”

Lurie and Misono agree—along with many student artists—that the arts deserve more attention and increased funding.

“Arts at Harvard are left out of the picture,” Misono says. “The administration does not do enough to fund the arts.”

Misono has been officially endorsed by Ethan L. Gray ’05, president-elect of HRO. Other musical groups on campus, including the Harvard Piano Society, Harvard Organ Society and Harvard Pops Orchestra, have forwarded information about him to their members.

Though Misono emphasizes the arts, both candidates say that the council should allocate more funding to all student groups and spend less on itself. According to Lurie, the council currently spends $9,000 on its own operations each year—money he says would be better off in the hands of student groups.

“The council wouldn’t be eligible to receive one of its own grants because it wastes so much money,” Lurie says, pointing to expenses such as $1,200 on photocopies. “Next year we can make sure the budget doesn’t have these ridiculous allocations.”

Eric J. Powell ’04, treasurer of the council, refutes Lurie’s claim that the council misuses its funds.

“This year we actually cut spending,” Powell says. “I try to do a diligent job at keeping extraneous expenses to a minimum.”

No Gimmicks, Some Nonsense

Though Lurie says a focus of his presidency would be to increase grants for student groups, he wants to avoid making extravagant promises about how much he will increase funding.

“We’re not going to promise you the moon and then give you a piece of cheese,” he says.

Campaigning with the slogan “No Gimmicks, No Nonsense, Just Results,” Lurie and Misono have shunned such campaign tools as flashy websites.

Lurie says they didn’t poster on the first day of campaigning because they didn’t want people to see them as “part of the machine.” They have since put up posters in all the Houses.

And in the wake of the death of Winthrop House student Marian H. Smith ’04 on Friday, Lurie and Misono have decided to stop their campaign activities altogether out of respect for the victim’s family, Lurie says.

“I think that tragedies like this are times for reflection on what’s truly important in life,” Lurie said on Saturday. “I think we all have to step back for a second.”

A campaign rally to be held yesterday was canceled, and Lurie says the duo will not put up any more posters.

Though Friday’s tragedy has brought out Lurie’s serious side, he is best known as a joker.

He campaigned last year for a council seat as a first-year in Weld. Though he lost, he says he learned from the experience that running for office is a good way to meet people.

“You get to go door-to-door and not look like a creepy stalker,” he says.

The door-to-door approach suits Lurie, a native of Wayne, N.J., who is described by friends as funny and charismatic.

“The problem with some Harvard students is their overly rigid personalities. They’re boringly unusual,” says Jason M. Bussey, a third-year student at Harvard Law School who works as an adviser to HSS. “Jason’s got a personality. He doesn’t take himself too seriously, but he’s serious enough to get the job done.”

Lurie brings his humor to the campaign, as well. While calling himself and Misono the “academic, intellectual, arts” ticket, he notes that they have more to offer.

“We’re also the ticket for people who like hot guys on the council,” he says.

But on a more serious note, he says he and Misono are different from other candidates because they don’t see the council as a springboard to future political ambitions. They each have plans to attend graduate school.

“We’re in it to improve the undergraduate experience, we’re not in it for the glory,” Lurie says. “If all of our ideas are co-opted by the ticket that wins, I’d be fine with that.”