Do students have to take the course? No. Do they feel compelled to take it? Yes.
From an administrative standpoint, department officials might reasonably argue that most courses cater to students' academic needs, or they wouldn't be offered. The department cannot be put in the position of having to draw lines, of having to decide which courses students believe integral to their knowledge of a specific field.
But, by the same token, students should not have to endanger their academic careers in order to express their moral disgust or to avoid a professor who has proven he has the potential to abuse his authority.
But again, from a practical stand-point, the disassociation issue is not so simple.
A university is financially limited in the number of instructors it can accommodate. Harvard is further limited by its commitment to finding the best scholars in a particular field. Often, therefore, departments have only one expert per academic specialty, as is the case with Dominguez in Latin American politics.
Graduate students' demands that departments be willing to hire an alternative to a certain professor appear, if for financial reasons alone, impractical from the University's stand-point. The granting of such a request is, unfortunately, doubly unlikely at a school with Harvard's rigorous scholarly standards.
Admittedly, logistics and ethics have created an impasse between the department and certain student groups.
Perhaps the most difficult issue, though, lies in the fact that much of what is proposed by students is not within the power of the Government Department to change.
THE DEAN OF THE Faculty of Arts and Sciences is vested with the responsibility to discipline faculty members found guilty of sexual harassment. The dean might in theory restrict an offender from teaching required courses (which former Dean Henry Rosovsky apparently never chose to do). But unless the dean levies such punishment, the department is powerless to dictate what a professor can and cannot teach because of a past offense.
Perhaps this loophole absolves the Government Department, but it does not clear the University from its obligation to weigh student requests for a disassociation statute.
The issue is not clear-cut. Many proposals--such as hiring alternative faculty members to cover for alleged sexual harassers--are downright impractical from a University standpoint.
Others--such as restricting certain professors from teaching courses required for a degree--might prove logistically tricky.
But the University must make an effort, whether overt or subtle, to recognize students' right to exercise moral objection, especially when the University itself has already voiced a similar moral objection.
To institute a principle of disassociation--for five years, or however long the University deems reasonable--might require as little as shuffling the assignment of certain professors to certain courses or as much as hiring another instructor for a limited amount of time.
In the case of the former, the University should allow departments not to assign alleged sexual harassers to courses specifically required for a degree. The department should approach effectively required courses, admittedly a more debatable issue, with a mind open to student concerns.
In the case of providing an alternative instructor, the University might or might not have to lower its rigorous hiring standards a bit in the name of expediency. It would no doubt have to shell out more money.
The expense, without a doubt, is merited.
It is high time for the administration to take action to curb student fears that they are being indirectly victimized by certain professors' objectionable pasts.