Administrators’ Actions Follow in Sad History

To the editors:

Last spring, I joined a courageous and conscientious group of students in their seizure of Massachusetts Hall.

I read that Harvard is issuing threats to those students because some (but not all—the Harvard administration seems unconcerned with truth) rallied in Mass. Hall for a fifteen-minute meeting (News, “College Warns PSLM Members,” Mar. 5). Thus the Harvard administration once again demonstrates its kinship for the Bourbon monarchy of the old regime, which, as the saying goes, forgot nothing and remembered nothing.

Lest anyone make the mistake of thinking that this behavior is merely a reflection of University President Lawrence H. Summers’ abrasive style, it might be well to recall that more than a decade ago, when a group of alumni managed to elect Archbishop Desmond Tutu to the Board of Overseers as part of a campaign to persuade Harvard to divest its South African holdings, the response of then-President Derek C. Bok was to change the rules for electing Overseers so that no one like Tutu would be elected in the future. Once Nelson Mandela was released, of course, Harvard embraced him with an honorary degree and all the other trappings of recognition.

As my fiftieth reunion approaches, I am saddened, but not really surprised, to see that Harvard continues to be a moral and political backwater.

Robert P. Wolff ’53-’54

Mar. 5, 2002