Opting In for Opting Out

There has been lately a lot of talk about this “opting” business. The idea of “opting,” a phrase I once used casually to say whether or not I’d like to do something, has recently taken on some serious new intonations. I’m not exactly sure where it began, but at least since the Undergraduate Council termbill tax hike last year, it seems that I have come to define myself and those around me in a new dimension: as opt-inners or opt-outers. It’s unclear exactly what each affiliation means, but I’m fairly certain that my parents would want me to be an opt-inner and girls would be more attracted to me if I were an opt-outer. I had a recent conversation with a Teaching Fellow who said he would opt-out of giving me a decent grade on a paper, and a recent run in with a cockroach who had decided to opt-into my sock drawer.

To opt-in or to opt-out has been the question for the council, who gave us the opt-option on the termbill hike last semester and on the initiative to establish student funding for wind power last week. Incidentally, we chose to pass the hike and pass wind, and to be given the chance to opt-out of both of them. Other groups have been doing this opting thing on the sly for some time: Harvard Right to Life (HRL) helps students opt-out of the portion of their student health bills that can be used to pay for abortions at University Health Services (UHS) and on the termbill one can opt-out of the Harvard-sponsored student insurance (although I believe in that instance the word “waive” is used).

The reaction to all this opting has already begun. There has been considerable consternation about the perils of opting out. Libertarian students collectively cursed current council President Matthew W. Mahan ’05 this summer when they had to go through so much trouble to opt-out of their termbill fees. Students and deans alike have griped that the wind power initiative will further the trend in termbill opting, leading to 18 pages of opt-options each year asking students to be “in” or “out” on everything from providing retractable awnings for the Au Bon Pain chess players to creating a school-wide “Adopt a Squirrel” program for our friendly Cambridge co-inhabitants. And recently, this newspaper declared itself for the principle of Equal Opting for All—arguing that HRL should not be allowed to opt-out of the abortion part of the UHS bill because other groups, like vegans, could not selectively opt-out of comprehensive university fees which may contain an element to which they are opposed.

I think that all this concern is overblown and that an expansion of opt-options, as silly as they may seem, would be a good thing for this campus. Consider for a moment the tremendous triumph of democratic deliberation that is subsumed in the opt-out option: A majority rules, and the rights of the minority to disagree with that rule are actually respected. That’s a compromise that would have pleased Alexander Hamilton and Thomas Jefferson. It combines a free-market mechanism any conservative can embrace with an inherent toleration any liberal can love.

Most of the concerns with opt-options seem at best superficial. After a little work, conscientious objectors were indeed allowed to opt-out of the termbill hike, and the Student Receivables Office (which administers the termbill) has committed to making the opt-out process easier. The wind power initiative, say what you will of its merits, was deemed by a majority of the council to be worth the small added inconvenience of an additional checkbox on the termbill. I trust that the council will be sensible enough to keep rare the opt-options on the termbill, and if it isn’t sensible (admittedly a distinct possibility), we can always vote ’em out. And failed logic against HRL would have one believe that since every opt-out-option for every possible objecting group is not structurally possible, it is not fair to allow only one or a few groups to opt-out. But change is incremental, and it seems reasonable to me that if vegans found a fair way to opt-out of the meat portion of their board fee, they should be allowed that option. In each of these cases, a majority of the student body agrees to support a termbill hike, to put wind power on the termbill, to allow abortions at UHS and to eat meat. For those who disagree, we have options.

That’s not to say that a world of opting out is without dangers. I see two great risks in opting. One is that with a proliferation of opt-options, we could build a campus culture of opting-out whenever some initiative or program does not directly serve our immediate interests. A “what’s in it for me” attitude would be disastrous for a student body that rightly prides itself on working together for common goals despite significant diversities on every level. The other more serious hazard is that we might find ourselves opting-out of agreements or collective understandings in ways that would be seriously damaging to other students. For example, were students to claim the right to opt-out of the university’s non-discrimination policy in order to have school-sponsored access to U.S. military recruiters (an employer that discriminates against homosexuals), such an action would do significant harm to bi-sexual, gay, lesbian and transgender students on campus. These kinds of opt-options should not be countenanced.

But I think that with vigilance we can prevent either from occurring. If done right, the opt-option university can be one where we take pride in advancing our own conceptions of justice or our own interests while building a deep respect for those who may disagree with our priorities. The answer to “what’s in it for me?” would thus be a campus that truly values, in word and deed, the differences among us. And although the line between the acceptable and unacceptable opt-out would be admittedly blurry, a campus which continued to build tolerance and equality through well-constructed opt-out options would be less prone to opt-out of protecting important fundamental rights of our fellow students.

So I will continue to opt-in for opting out. I encourage students to continue to push for change while respecting their peers’ rights to opt-out, except in those situations where basic rights are at stake. And when the Faculty meet to decide on whether to approve the opt-out wind power initiative, I encourage them to reject superficial slippery-slope arguments about the demise of the termbill as we know it and embrace opt-options for what they are: creative and democratic means for implementing positive change.

Christopher J. Catizone ’06, a Crimson editorial editor, is a government concentrator living in Dunster House.