Guide Criticizes “Elitist” Groups

A new voice was added to the chorus of on-campus media this Wednesday with the introduction of the Harvard “Disorientation Guide,” a left-leaning web primer aimed at revealing “the many holes in Harvard’s carefully-crafted image,” according to the website.

The “Disguide” covers topics as diverse as the history of racism at Harvard, the role that the University has played in the country’s wars, and final clubs. Editors of the guide say they seek to present a history of Harvard that is not commonly presented to freshmen as well as an overview of campus progressives’ current concerns.

“One of the bad things about freshman orientation is that it gives you this rosy picture of a happy Harvard family that’s really benign,” said Maxwell C. Drummey ’07, one of the editors of the guide. “Harvard is still not an ideal place, you know, equality still does not exist here.”

The guide, which contains articles entitled “Economics Exposed: A Critique of the Harvard Economics Department” and “Rage: I’m a Working-Class Queer Black Woman,” also lists resources on feminism, activism, and the local arts scene.

The guide does not pull any punches in its criticism of campus institutions it considers elitist.

Regarding final clubs, Drummey writes: “Going to and joining final clubs means to tolerate the sexism, elitism, and nepotism that they facilitate. For the socially conscious Harvard student, these are institutions not only to avoid but to expose for what they are and for the unjust practices they perpetuate.”

Regarding The Harvard Crimson’s editorial board, a contributor who is anonymous on the website writes: “These opinions have swung to the Right in recent years, coming out in staunch support of discriminatory groups on campus, the occupation of Iraq, free market economics, and the administration of Larry Summers.”

The Harvard Disorientation Guide is not the first of its kind in higher education. Similar publications exist at other universities, such as Duke and Columbia, whose own “Disorientation Guide” was used as a model for Harvard’s, according to Adaner Usmani ’08, another one of the editors.

The idea to produce a Harvard Disorientation Guide has been floating around for a number of years, said guide editor Michael A. Gould-Wartofsky ’07, who is also a Crimson editor.

The ball started rolling again this summer at a meeting of the Student Labor Action Movement (SLAM), according to Usmani. Gould-Wartofsky explained that “all the individuals who were involved were either in SLAM or sort of allies.”

“[SLAM] was sort of a nexus for people to do this project, but it wasn’t fiscally a SLAM project,” he added.

Gould-Wartofsky said that the guide has no “pretense of objectivity.”

“It’s clear about what it is. It’s just one side of Harvard that doesn’t get talked about, from our perspective,” he said. “But we hope that it’s a spark for more discussion. We want The Salient to have fun with this; we want people to be putting out their own responses to this.”

The Salient is Harvard’s right-leaning weekly.

John M. Sheffield ’09, vice-president of the Harvard Libertarian Forum who has explored the Disorientation Guide’s website, said that he is frustrated because it “claims to speak for me and my economic class.”

“I come from a single–parent family, my family has lived at or below the poverty line, and I’m here on Harvard Financial Aid. So from the beginning I take issue with something that says Harvard isn’t doing enough,” Sheffield said.

“I have to admit that I’m a white male so that probably takes away a good deal of my credibility,” he added.

The editors of the Disorientation Guide say they hope to produce a print version to distribute to freshmen in the coming year.

—Staff writer Ashton R. Lattimore can be reached at arlattim@fas.harvard.edu.