JUST HOW insensitive can Harvard students be?

First there was the Confederate flag in Kirkland House, thanks to Bridget L. Kerrigan '92. As she did last year, when she displayed the Stars and Bars from her window at Peabody Terrace, Kerrigan says her flag symbolizes Southern pride.

Then there was another Confederate flag in Cabot House, hung for similar reasons by Timothy P. McCormack '91-'92.

Despite protests from fellow students who saw the flags as symbols of slavery and oppression, neither Kerrigan nor McCormack budged. So Jacinta T. Townsend '92, a Cabot House resident, decided to hang a swastika from her window, hoping that the University would compel her to remove it. Then, she thought, the University would also have to force Kerrigan and McCormack to remove their flags.

But the University has remained silent, and rightly so. Much as Townsend would like them to, the Confederate flags--and her swastika--do not fall beyond the limits of constitutionally protected free speech. University rules, of course, technically ban students to hang anything from their windows except plain white curtains. But since the University has taken no action against students who display everything from the U.N. banner to the American flag to HRO advertisements, it's hard to imagine that the administration could force the removal of the flags and the swastika.

University policy should, and indeed does, encourage students to respect each others' feelings, but an overprotective Mother Harvard would be unjust and counterproductive. We said last week that even Brown University's recent decision to expel a student for screaming racial and ethnic slurs constituted an unacceptable restriction on free expression. For Harvard to pull down offensive symbols would be truly totalitarian.

That makes the brouhaha over the flags and the swastika an issue of sensitivity, not free speech. Kerrigan and McCormack claim they are not trying to offend anyone by publicly displaying their flags. But they do offend many students who cannot help but associate the Stars and Bars with slavery and oppression. Townsend's response to their insensitivity is equally insensitive. All three have espoused lofty principles. But none of them seem to care about their fellow students' feelings.

The way to combat any legitimate free spech, however insensitive it may be, is not to push it underground where it can fester and grow. It's better that this sort of insensitivity should be exposed and challenged with more free speech.

Members of the Harvard community should constantly remind Kerrigan and McCormack that their Confederate flag stands for much more than Southern pride. They should tell Townsend that there are better ways to react to a Confederate flag than to offend members of a fellow minority group. The Black Students Association and Hillel did just that, issuing a joint statement condemning the symbols and deftly avoiding an unnecessary Black-Jewish confrontation over the issue.

There is no guarantee, of course, that a healthy dose of free speech will cause all the world's Confederate flags and swastikas to come tumbling down. But vigorous debate just might do the job at Harvard, if members of the Harvard community follow the lead of the BSA and Hillel in helping those like Kerrigan, McCormack and Townsend understand how a symbol can hurt.

Harvard students have the right to offend each other. It's up to the rest of us to convince them not to.