When Bridget L. Kerrigan '91 hung a Confederate flag from her Kirkland House window, and when Jacinda T. Townsend '92 responded by hanging a swastika in her own window, the Black Students Association (BSA) and Hillel worked together to formulate an organized response.
And although the situation was represented in the national media as a racial meltdown at Harvard, many say the BSA-Hillel coalition served as a positive example of race relations gone right.
The question remains, though, whether these cooperative sentiments can be sustained. Was last year's incident the exception or the rule?
Some, like Natosha O. Reid '93, see it as the exception.
"I'd like to see a lot more interaction between the groups other than just the fact that we're here," Reid says. "I don't see a true interaction or alliance of different racial groups on campus."
"This whole sort of melting pot thing is an idea," says Tamara D. Duckworth '91-'92. "I think the diversity thing is an experiment, and we're not sure if it's going to work yet. We still have to come to terms with what it means in the country as a whole."
We learned in elementary school that the United States is a "melting pot," and that America is a place where people of different colors and backgrounds come to live and work together.
But many sociologists today say that the goal of American society should be to achieve, not a melting pot, but a "salad bowl," in which each individual component retains its own shape and identity, but contributes to the total flavor of the composite.
The danger, though, is that society may turn out to be more like a "salad bar," in which each ingredient is separated by nearly impenetrable barriers and an out-of-place vegetable sticks out like a sore thumb--or a white student at an Asian American Association meeting.
Harvard, most would agree, has not become a nightmarish "salad bar." But just because Harvard is not stricken by cross burnings or Bensonhurst-style murders does not mean that the University's unique brand of diversity is without flaw.
"One of the comments we get all the time is that there aren't any problems at Harvard," Weinstock says. "Nine out of 10 times that's said, it's said by a white student."
Many students say they sense that tension in racially divided dining hall tables, and in students' attitudes towards issues such as interracial dating.
And the situation, some say, has the potential to worsen.
Admissions Officer David L. Evans thinks that, in troubled economic times, when cries of "reverse discrimination" abound, we should be aware that diversity can have some serious repercussions.
"The civil rights movement succeeded in a time when the economy was expanding," Evans says. "Right now, in a tightening economy, everyone is paranoid."
As national attention focuses on racial paranoia, why should we be worried about relatively enlightened Harvard? Weinstock thinks that, with a problem of such magnitude, Harvard may be the perfect place to start.
"Instead of glossing over the problems and covering them up," he says, "we should concentrate our efforts on working at those problems, so that we will be better educated and better able to deal with those problems once we get outside."
We live in a diverse community--a community that, in each year's admissions process, is consciously engineered as a mix of racial and ethnic groups.
Harvard officials say such a diverse community is intended to enhance the potential for learning on campus. At the same time students begin to associate "Harvard" with "diversity," they are told that they will learn more from the people around us than they ever will learn in the classroom.
Even the most stalwart defenders of Harvard's model of diversity agree that learning can only take place in the presence of communication and interaction. If those ideals are not fully met, then--if they believe the standard Harvard rhetoric--students here must ask whether they are getting the right education.