HRRA-RAZA Article Wrongly Characterizes 'E-Mail War'

Please let me attempt to provide The Crimson with something it obviously did not have in writing the Nov. 20 article about the e-mail correspondance that took place between RAZA and the Harvard Radcliffe Republican Alliance (HRRA)--the facts. And the facts are these:

* The Republican organization in question is called the Harvard Radcliffe Republican Alliance--not the Republican Association. One would think that a quick look at the e-mail sent out by HRRA President Noah Z. Seton '00 would have cleared this bit of "research" up. But obviously, The Crimson was not to be bothered with such details.

* A RAZA member was harassed at Gnomon Copy by a person who is not a member of the Republican Alliance. This person received his information from another organization and claimed to be a Republican.

* Seton, upon hearing about this incident, was disgusted by it and wrote an e-mail on behalf of the HRRA to RAZA and the HRRA membership in order to express his sympathies to the RAZA member who was harassed and strongly condemn the actions of his harasser. There was no subsequent e-mail war as a result.

* There are not now and there have never been tensions between RAZA and the HRRA. In fact, the HRRA has prided itself on the friendly relationship that it has as a Republican organization with minority, racial and ethnic organizations on this campus--from the MSA to the BSA to the AAA to RAZA. The only "racial tensions" that may exist are the ones in the heads of some overzealous Crimson reporters. --William D. A. Zerhouni '98, President Emeritus, Harvard-Radcliffe Republican Alliance