Open Gate Policy

It is a year too late, but not so late that we should overlook the College's decision this week to open the gates of the Fly Club Garden.

One year ago, the College broke all ties with the nine exclusive all-male final clubs, thus discontinuing the clubs' access to University steam heat, centrex telephone service, and alumni mailing lists. Harvard should then also have made its portion of the Fly Club Garden totally open to the undergraduate public.

Instead, the College kept the locks on the gates and required all students except Fly Club members to reserve use of the spot through the dean of students' office.

Fly Club members, by contrast, may walk into their backyard lawn any time they wish. The club only owns about one-third of the real estate, but in exchange for maintaining the garden, club members may use any part of the property while Harvard pays all the taxes.

By seeing these inequities as remaining College ties to the clubs, the Undergraduate Council this month forced the College to deal with a situation which no other organization had been able to remedy.

Although the College should have cut this tie a year ago, newly appointed Dean of the College L. Fred Jewett '57 should be praised for acting quickly on this issue. In addition, the student services committe of the Council, which brought this tie to Harvard's attention, deserves praise for forcing College administrators to make the garden truly a people's field.