Making 'Fair Harvard' Fair

The venerable and beloved anthem "Fair Harvard" has in recent years been a matter of controversy, because it is unintentionally sexist, having been written way back when there were no women at Harvard.

Most of the solutions offered are awkward and clumsy, and therefore not solutions. May I therefore offer one that works.

Graduating men (and their parents and guests) should sing Fair Harvard unchanged. Graduating women (and their parents and guests) should substitute "daughters in" for "sons to thy."

Thus men will sing "thy sons to thy jubilee throng" while women will sing "thy daughters in jubilee throng." The divergence of three syllables lasts not more than two seconds, with no divergence in beat or rhythm, blending in a perfect marriage.

It is in fact not a divergence but a wholeness. It preserves the song intact, with half those present singing it as it was written in the innocence of 1836, and at the same time assures Harvard that all her progeny are thronging, not just half, and with blessings surrendering her o'er.

It makes Fair Harvard fair. Otherwise it would be Unfair Harvard.

This doesn't need a ponderous committee to ponder it. If it makes sense, just do it. And by the time you've been out of Harvard as long as I have, it will be an ancient tradition. Myron S. Kaufman '43

The author was an editor of the Crimson from 1941 to 1943.