Plans for Martin Peretz Fund Use Outlined

Social Studies Director of Studies Anya Bernstein and Chair of the Committee of Degrees in Social Studies Richard Tuck informed faculty and students about future use of the controversial Martin Peretz Fund yesterday afternoon.

The presentation and subsequent forum, which was attended by many of the departmental tutors and about a dozen social studies concentrators, followed the department’s announcement in September that it would set up an undergraduate research fund to honor Martin “Marty” H. Peretz. The proposed fund had sparked much controversy as many said Peretz had a 30-year history of issuing hateful language towards blacks, Latinos, Arabs, and Muslims.

Bernstein announced yesterday the money from the fund, totaling $650,000 in donations from Peretz’s friends and family, will be available for use starting next calendar year.

Bernstein told audience members 90 percent of the funds will be devoted to juniors pursuing thesis research, with priority given to social or political theorists and those studying either multiculturalism, social justice, or inequality.

The remaining 10 percent, Bernstein said, will be set apart for small start-up research grants of about $250-500 each.

Social Studies concentrators who apply through the Harvard College Research Program will either receive grants from the Peretz fund or from the pool of money already available for thesis research in the department.

HCRP awards are typically capped around $1500, and the Peretz fund has no such constraint at this time, Bernstein said.

Bernstein also emphasized only HCRP administrators, Tuck, and herself would know who chose to take grants from the Peretz fund. This arrangement was the result of a compromise after controversy over the Peretz fund culminated in protests from college and graduate school students and a student walk-out in the class Social Studies 10.

“I’ve heard from students across the spectrum: students who are opposed to this money and students who have contacted me, sometimes privately, who would like to use this money but are afraid of being ostracized if their use of it becomes public,” said Bernstein. “What we want to do is set up an arrangement that respects everybody’s preferences, to the extent that that is possible.”

Some students, however, remained skeptical of the plans for using the fund.

“It doesn’t change the fact that it’s still wrong,” Melissa J. Barber ’13 said, pointing out the decision to add the Peretz money to current research funds instead of pulling back existing funding was an “implicit acknowledgement” of wrongdoing on the part of the department.

Both Tuck and Bernstein denied that the arrangement was indicative the fund’s moral ambiguity.

“The same question would have come up had this fund been made in honor of Martin Luther King,” Tuck said.

—Staff writer Kevin J. Wu can be reached at kwu@college.harvard.edu.