For Free Choice

DEAN FOX'S PLAN for the housing system, while hardly convincing in its argument for eliminating freshmen from the Quad, is at least a consistent document. It shows that Fox knows his efforts to make the House system more uniform--and in his view, more equitable--cannot go halfway. By moving freshmen out of the Quad and reducing or eliminating the student choice factor in housing assignments, Fox's plan has a chance--in theory, at least--of making the Houses more equal in students' minds.

But The Crimson's majority position is inconsistent. On one hand, it correctly presents diversity in House styles as a desirable goal. The Quad has shown that four-year Houses offer several advantages for both freshmen and upperclassmen. These advantages argue persuasively for keeping the Quad Houses as four-year Houses, in part to let these advantages compensate for any perceived disadvantages of living at the Quad.

The majority position contradicts itself by advocating a House assignment system that ignores student preferences. The advantages that a diverse housing system offers can be fully realized only when students are allowed to choose among alternatives or at least to express a preference. By not giving incoming freshmen a choice of living at the Quad with upperclassmen or offering upperclassmen the choice of living at the Quad with freshmen, the supposed alternative becomes meaningless.

If a "no-choice system" would work differently in practice, fine. But so far, no clear description of how the system would work has been offered by anyone in the administration. If "no-choice" means what it says, however, both that system and the Fox plan should be scrapped. Harvard certainly can do better.