When Starr arrived at Harvard, he was full of idealistic dreams of improving the world, he says. "I wanted to major in political science so that I could fix all the problems of the world," he says. But he found government courses difficult and uninteresting.

Starr discovered that he prefered more quantitative subjects--and could still attack unfairness, like copyright violations, outside the classroom.

He began his campaign for justice soon after arriving at Harvard. During his first-year, he lived in Wigglesworth E. It was a cosy community of 12 friendly but overheated people, living above the dormitory's notoriously overactive boiler.

As his dormmates wandered around in tank tops, sharing Chinese fans, Starr wrote to the administration and got the heat adjusted. He earned widespread gratitude for his efforts, says Jennifer N. Geary '91, who lived in the same entryway.

But when Starr turned his attention to the neighboring entry in Wigglesworth, he met with a cooler reception.

Wigglesworth D was larger, more boisterous and "tended to sponsor the hump-night parties," he recalls.

"I tried a couple of times to report underage drinking [there], unsuccessfully," he says. "Harvard didn't choose to take action."

Starr complained to the Harvard police, Dean of Freshmen Henry C. Moses and Dean of the College L. Fred Jewett '57. But those were the days before the new alcohol policy, and his requests went unheeded.

"John Marquand, [Starr's advisor], told me I should go over to Dean Moses' house, even though he was having a tea, and tell him that I was going to call the police," says Starr.

"Dean Moses wasn't happy that I interrupted him at tea," Starr continues," and his argument, I think, was of college as a learning experience, and students should learn these things, and blah blah blah."

Jewett proved no more receptive, Starr says. "I wrote to him saying 'I won't tolerate underage drinking.' He wrote back saying he doesn't think it's appropriate for Harvard to police people and go around looking in their rooms."

Starr says that he reported underage drinking partly because he disapproves of alcohol ("people shouldn't have to assemble around a liquid," he says), but primarily because it is against the law.

And respect for the law, says Starr, is the basic principle of civilized life.   (C)  (C)  (C)

In a black leather briefcase, Starr carries a manila file folder of neatly xeroxed Crimson articles about his copyright reports at Harvard, Time and News-week pieces about other copyright infringements and a copy of his motivational mantra: a letter written by Alexei Cowett '89, which ran in the May, 1984, Deerfield Gazette.

The letter says, in part, "It is my conviction that one person can make a difference and that the obligation resides in every student to either report a major... violation or to attempt to prevent the violation from taking place."