Fighting Against Full Disclosure

A group of concerned Harvard administrators shuttled to Beacon Hill this week to give their friend-of-the-legislature briefing on a bill pending in the State House of Representatives that would grant Massachusetts college students access to all confidential records and files kept on them.

The Harvard delegates, led by General Counsel Daniel Steiner '54, tried to convince the state secretary of education and Democratic State Rep. Lois G. Pines, proposer of the bill, that the measure could create problems for both Harvard administrators and students.

By opening up the personal records of students, Harvard contends, both the University's admissions procedures and its system of subsequent internal communications concerning tutorial reports and assessments of the student by advisers and proctors would be seriously undermined.

The personal records kept by Harvard on each student include recommendations, admissions applications, academic and disciplinary records and many other written correspondences concerning the students' Harvard career.

Harvard also claims that a student's privacy could be indirectly invaded because prospective employers and parents could ask students for their complete records, including disciplinary and other private files which Harvard now does not release to anyone.

But basically, Harvard opposes the bill because it threatens an administrative procedure dear to the University; one that enables candid and often pointed evaluation of a student's academic, emotional, political and, to an extent, social life here at Harvard--with accountability to no one.