A Protest That Worked

AFTER A YEAR OF PROTEST, University officials have agreed not to name the Kennedy School of Government's Library after Charles W. Engelhard. The students who raised the issue and sustained the organized opposition to the naming of the library are in large part responsible for provoking the administration's decision. We commend those students for their initiative.

Despite President Bok's recent statement on gift policy, the administration's agreement, which allows a plaque in the library to acknowledge that the funds were given in Engelhard's memory, shows that it is possible to use moral criteria without embarrassing or compromising the University. Engelhard, an industrialist whose political and financial participation in South Africa directly supported the apartheid regime, is hardly an appropriate figure for memorialization by a school of public policy. The administrators at the Kennedy School who accepted the compromise worked out by its committee on gifts showed a concern for moral responsibilities not yet demonstrated by the University administration. Their willingness to heed protests of the larger Harvard community should serve as an example to their more reluctant counterparts on the Corporation and in the administration.