Open

To the Editors of The Crimson:

We members of The Open University are very concerned by David Rettig's letter to The Crimson yesterday. We do not believe that any student should be coerced, explicitly or otherwise, into taking any particular political stance. The purpose of The Open University is to make students aware of the world in which they live and of the way decisions are made at Harvard. Working for divestment has shown us a more fundamental problem at Harvard: that all final authority to make policy decisions rests in the hands of seven people. The Harvard Corporation (a group of seven men, all white and rather wealthy) meets secretly, and is the only group with any power on moral issues--such as divestment--which concern the entire community. Such a secretive and exclusive system is antithetical to the University's commitment to open and free discourse; such an undemocratic structure hurts an institution which should be training citizens for democracy.

We state publicly and for the record that attending a class at The Open University does not mean a student supports divestiture. It means only that she or he believes that the issue of divestiture and other issues of University policy should be addressed openly and honestly by the administration and the Harvard Corporation. If any student has serious moral problems with this principle, his or her section leader should respect that opinion and not ask the class to meet at The Open University. Otherwise, we invite all to join us in building a community of academic freedom which does not shy away from open debate of moral issues. The Members of the Open University