To Our Readers

In the April issue of Commentary magazine, Justin C. Danilewitz '99 alleged that he had been denied positions on The Crimson's editorial board because of his Jewish faith. His charges were later aired on local television and radio and in the national media, including the Associated Press, Fox News Channel and The Washington Post.

Because Danilewitz's allegations are groundless--and because they have not yet been laid to rest--we take this opportunity to set the record straight. Below is the response we have submitted to Commentary:

In "Counting Noses at The Harvard Crimson" (April), Justin Danilewitz launches an attack on our newspaper, claiming that he was not selected to be editorial chair because he was not the kind of Jew The Crimson was looking for--namely, one willing to turn his back on other Jews. He claims that we are, however, and that while in office we have instituted a "new policy" at The Crimson, "a program designed to promote the most superficial kind of diversity--the diversity of skin color." He alleges that this policy cost him a position as columnist.

Danilewitz is dealing in fictions. No such anti-Semitic policy or program exists at The Crimson, nor have we ever wished for one. In selecting among the 43 applicants for the position of bi-weekly columnist, we sought responsible students whose work would engage our diverse readership and challenge them to consider new ideas and new perspectives. There were simply more qualified candidates than Danilewitz is--including the co-chair of Harvard Students for Israel and another active member of Harvard-Radcliffe Hillel. We did not employ quotas in our selection of columnists, and we did not reject anyone because of his or her race, religion or gender. In fact, we increased the total number of columnists from 10 to 17, with the number of Jewish columnists rising from eight to 10 this semester. Moreover, despite Danilewitz's absence, 80 percent of current Crimson editorial board executives are Jewish--no fewer than last year.

It is true, as Danilewitz points out, that we dismissed one conservative Jewish columnist. But this student's dismissal had nothing to do with either his religion or his political views; he was let go because, having written for two years, he was no longer offering our readers a fresh perspective.

On one point, Danilewitz is correct. Both of us have a strong commitment to diversifying The Crimson's editorial page. As Danilewitz noted, we pointed in our position papers to the fact that 80 percent of the columnists last year were Jewish as evidence that The Crimson's editorial page did not adequately reflect the diversity of opinion on campus. But Danilewitz fails to mention that we also pointed to the fact that the number of columnists who were female, non-white or science majors was too low.

Our interest is not in excluding anyone, but in including as many different perspectives as we can. We disagree with Danilewitz's assumption that this effort makes us bad Jews. In fact, we believe Judaism is commensurate with the values of inclusion, expression and understanding which we hold dear. Editorial Chairs