A Step in the Wrong Direction

The Undergraduate Council has an unfortunate history of being a somewhat irrelevant campus organization. Before last year, during which the council focused almost exclusively on student services, it would often spend a great deal of time debating and voting on resolutions irrelevant to Harvard’s undergraduate community. For this reason, we hope that the recent comments by new Council President Sujean S. Lee ’03—that she wants the council involved in to be more “political or controversial” issues—do not reflect a return to the bad old days.

Among other inane things, the council condemned the human rights records of China and Burma in 1997 and reviled police brutality in the Amadou Diallo case in 2000. While we have no quarrel with the content of these resolutions, they were ineffective in accomplishing anything, both for undergraduates and for victims of human rights abuse or police brutality.

But under the skillful leadership of Paul A. Gusmorino ’02, the council’s focus mercifully shifted to student services. Last year’s council brought Dispatch, the Roots and the Black-Eyed Peas to sold-out campus shows. It launched the student events fund, which gives free tickets to campus events for students on financial aid. The council continued valuable services like UC Boxes and UC Books, and it convinced the administration to extend both party hours and universal keycard access.

To Lee’s credit, she has said she intends to focus on political issues that relate to Harvard—ROTC, grade inflation and the Summers/West controversy, to name a few. But addresssing those issues risks diluting the council’s power by alienating both students and administrators, and it remains unlikely that the council would be able to make a significant difference. Worse, addressing these controversial issues would jeopardize the council’s ability to make tangible improvements in the quality of life of undergraduates. Part of Gusmorino’s success lay in the trust the administration had in his opinions; it would be sad to see this year’s council squander that trust by making irrelevant policy stands.

This is not an elementary debate, for there is still much work for the council to do on student services. Lee should focus on convincing the administration to extend universal keycard access all night. She should address the space crunch facing students by pressuring the administration to build a student center and hasten the recently-delayed renovations of the Malkin Athletic Center.

Not only would it be unhelpful for Lee to shift the council’s focus to political issues, it would also be disingenuous. She and the other candidates ran on platforms consisting mostly of improving student services, not on their political views. Students voted for Lee because they felt she could best resolve some of the problems that undergraduates face.

The College has many organizaions whose raison d’etre is to take such stands. All council members are more than welcome to be a part of them. However, they should leave their politics outside the council door and keep in mind the best interests of the student body that elected them.

Lee’s presidency is still in its nascent stage, and she has made many positive statements regarding student-life issues, including the space crunch and shuttles to New York City. She deserves time to properly implement them. But she must not set the council down the same road of activist politics that led it to infamy and impotence.