Postering Campaign Violates College Rules

To the editors:

Now, I can’t say that I’ve taken down any of Harvard Right to Life’s (HRL) posters (News, “Group Claims Right-to-Life Posters Torn Down, Defaced,” Oct. 20). But what I can attest to is that HRL’s postering campaign has several troubling features.

First, the posters themselves are illegal; they are not stamped with an “approval notice by the sponsoring organization” in the bottom right-hand corner as per the Harvard College Handbook for Student Organizations. In addition, many of HRL’s posters violate the College’s “one per board” rule. I have seen a number of bulletin boards with two, three or even four HRL posters on them! And these are not small 8.5”-by-11” posters, but instead the much larger 11”-by-17” size. What’s more is that because the posters do not advertise a specific dated event, they never “expire” and thus on the often small bulletin boards in Houses that are not regularly cleaned off, these HRL posters can take up an disproportionally large amount of board space for an exceedingly long period of time.

I do not condone the removal of HRL’s (or any student group’s) posters, but when a group puts up posters illegally, especially when the posters are made to be controversial, the group cannot expect their illegal posters to remain up in perpetuity.

JASON L. LURIE ’05

Oct. 20, 2003

The writer is a member of the Harvard Undergraduate Council from Cabot House and a member of the Student-Faculty Committee on College Life.