In addition, the council recommended that disciplinary action for perpetrators of "sexual negligence" be less severe than for perpetrators of rape--when the unwillingness of the victim was expressed.
But how is it less a crime to force sex on someone who does express unwillingness? Why should victims too traumatized to shout or fight be treated differently from those able to do so?
Of course, in some cases those who bring charges of date rape are intentionally or unintentionally distorting what can be murky facts. But the answer should not be to adopt a standard unfair to those victims who have been raped but who could not express their anger, fear or unwillingness. Thus the date Rape Task Force was right to adopt a definition of rape as any sexual act "that occurs without the expressed consent of the person..." This makes it incumbent on initiators of sex to obtain a specific "yes" or "no."
IN THEIR ANNUAL Revue spoof edition this year, some Harvard Law review editors included an article titled "He-Manifesto of Post-Mortem Legal Feminism (From the Desk of Mary Doe)," a parody of an article published in the Law Review in March by the late feminist legal scholar Mary Joe Frug.
The sick parody was not only an insult to Frug's family but to feminists, women and thinking people everywhere. The parody was condemned by many members of the Harvard community, but the frightening insensitivity of the parody authors and the lack of immediate response from Dean Robert C. Clark may be indicative of larger problems at the Law School.
HARVARD is not shy about extolling the virtues of a diverse community. But while the University is relatively free of outright bigotry, there should be more of an institutional commitment both to react to crises and to work actively to remedy the problems of living in a community of difference. As one student said, "putting people together without getting their mentalities ready to be put together" is not effective in achieving racial harmony. There is a commitment to diversity in numbers, but not diversification of outlook and attitudes.
Minority and majority students alike thus often engage in celebration of their own cultures without ever being asked to understand others.' Race-and ethnicity-rooted incidents of harassment may not be the rule at Harvard, but they do occur. Clearly, the University could do more.
But neither Assistant Dean Hilda Hernandez-Gravelle's Office of race Relations and Minority Affairs nor S. Allen Counter's Harvard Foundation for Intercultural and Race Relations has a clearly defined role in the University. Worse, this confusion has led to counterproductive and childish hostility between the two administrators. Of the two offices, the Foundation is more visible on campus and hosts well-attended "feel good" activities which celebrate cultures on campus. But simply celebrating cultures does little to foster acceptance of those cultures by other students.
Furthermore, the Foundation's director, Allen Counter, has largely compromised any role he could play as a builder of racial and ethnic harmony by alienating some students on campus, particularly Jews.
Counter co-authored a letter to The crimson in April which included, among a litany of misrepresentations, racially charged language about a "Crimson group" whose "writers active in Hillel" support a "racial agenda" that includes overlooking and perhaps agreeing with anti-Black sentiments.
Counter expressed similar attitudes about Jewish media control in a 1985 article in The Crisis magazine and once referred to a Crimson reporter he had not met as a "that militant Jew." Clearly, Allen Counter is not the one to spearhead Harvard's effort to achieve true racial and ethnic understanding.
The administrator with a broader mandate to reach out to students is Hernandez-Gravelle. But relatively few students know about her office, which, among other tasks, handles harassment cases. Few undergraduates attend the events sponsored by Actively Working Against Racism and Ethnocentrism, the student group that works out of her office. What good is an outreach program if it doesn't reach anyone?
The administrator devoted to improving our understanding (and, implicitly, increasing our acceptance) of one another and our various cultures must raise interest, galvanize students, attract crowds. Hernandez-Gravelle's relative anonymity renders her all but ineffective.
Some might say that this sort of understanding and acceptance of difference is personal and that the University can do little as an institution to help. But more discussion and fewer speeches, perhaps a required meeting for first-year students and almost certainly a new, charismatic administrator in charge of diversity would be good places to start. Coordinating all the activities out of one office is also a must.
AT ISSUE for many in the ROTC debate is not whether the military should end its policy of excluding gays, lesbians and bisexuals. Many ROTC defenders agree that it should.
The debate at Harvard has centered around financial concerns. One report last fall found that 89 percent of ROTC students on campus said they would not have come to Harvard if the University did not accept ROTC funds. But if money is a major concern (as it was for more than eight in 10 of this 89 percent), Harvard offers need-based aid to every student who qualifies.
We recognize that Harvard's definition of "qualification" for financial aid may mean hardships for middle and working class families. But in that case, the issue should be how we can make Harvard affordable for all qualified students. This should not require accepting discriminatory funding from ROTC.
A campus-wide fracas has erupted over no other case of such clear discrimination. No amount of caterwauling about the faults of financial aid would force Harvard to accept money from Nazis or the KKK. Obviously ROTC is not devoted to the oppression of homosexuals, but the military's discrimination is no less clearly stated. For now, the choice for the Faculty Council is clear: ROTC funding should go.