Andrew Golis

while most of the things on the Crimson opinion page are pure trash, today there was a column today that included some of the thoughts expressed on this blog by myself and others about the Anti-Summers campaign. From today’s Crimson:

The Coalition for an Anti-Sexist Harvard yesterday held a rally in front of the Science Center to SPEAK OUT FOR AN ANTI-SEXIST HARVARD and COMMUNITY VOTE OF NO CONFIDENCE [their caps, not mine]. I confess, the almost-certainly-well-meaning Coalition lost me with the subject line—I don’t much appreciate being e-shouted at. What followed, moreover, was a ridiculous laundry list of demands that demonstrated an ill-conceived (and unfair) attempt to roll a host of campus issues into the firestorm around President Summers’ leadership.

[...]

Their final two demands, however, condemned the e-mail to my computer’s trash bin: “demanding that Harvard take steps to dismantle the final club system,” and, “the democratization of administrative decision-making.”

The Coalition’s apparent dislike of the final club system has absolutely no place in a rally about President Summers’ leadership. The final clubs have nothing to do with the University’s administration, and to leverage condemnation of President Summers as sexist and unfit for leadership on his abolition of the final club system is unfair, unreasonable, and irrational.

As for the democratization of administrative decision-making, the Coalition has to realize that Harvard is not a democracy and never should be. As students, we pay tuition, not taxes, and while we ought to be able to expect a certain level of attention to our needs as members of the college community, we should not expect a hand in the decision-making of the college itself.

I agree on both counts. As I have said before, we have a problem of strategy. Yes, these issues are connected (except maybe PetroChina). But normally, social movements focus on one thing at a time so that they can ACTUALLY WIN and build momentum toward the other things. That’s why is a MOVEMENT. Because they grow with success and build in numbers. Not by asking the world and being surprised when nothing happens.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, February 23rd, 2005 at 4:04 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.