Allen sees an increase in the conservatism of the former Kremlin on the Charles. "Upsettingly, I stood up in Adams House to make an announcement about the Lift the Ban rally and had people hissing," she says.
Or maybe non-activist students have reached their threshhold. Awareness is enough, and perhaps no amount of activism will convince them that a more identity-sensitive university holds any further promise for them.
The recent activities of the Undergraduate Council may confirm this. In recent years, ideologues like Randal S. Jeffrey '91 have lost races for chair, and former chair David A. Aronberg '93 says, "There's a greater sentiment that we should be handling student services." This year, the council offered no comment on Mansfield's remarks or on the selection of Gen. Colin Powell as commencement speaker.
Presumably the council members reflect the sentiment of the student body as a whole. "What's going to affect people more: the U.C. spending $800 on a Stairmaster or writing a letter about minority faculty hiring?" Students, once made sufficiently "aware," can return to the activities that more directly help them.
A May 1992 demonstration at Brown University suggests that this interest threshhold exists at other universities. John P. Mishovsky, managing editor of the Brown Daily Herald, notes that police arrested 253 students at a protest against need-aware admissions.
People are "captivated" by it, he says, and he suggests that this was the largest demonstration in recent years. Recent agitation for an all-Black Africa House produced bluster among Brown's activists but only 12 volunteers to live in a 20-bed home. On the other hand, the could've-been-me-flavored financial aid debate actually brought the masses into the streets.
In the final analysis, though, the fervor of identity politics wanes because most people do not define themselves with reference to fixed characteristics. Many students who belong to minority groups may not believe that membership influences their lives. And there are enough straights, whites and males at Harvard and in American society that being a straight white male provides little means of self-definition.
Many leave Harvard without feeling any sense of urgency about ethnic, gender or sexual identity. "If you're a white male, you could go through four years not dealing with minority issues," Geary says.
Perhaps this shouldn't be true. Some, like Kim, insist that all students should see the influence of innate traits. "Your own experience isn't some objective experience," she says. "It's your own."
She bristled when she read the senior survey. Kim complains, "They were trying to ask me if I've been treated differently because I'm a minority, as if being a minority is something that's added on."
HARVARD'S EXPERIENCE with identity politics may differ from other universities' only in its timing. Events elsewhere suggest that the road to identity politics, easily discerned by the Class of '93, becomes in time the road through identity politics.
At Stanford, the cradle of the expression "Hey, hey, ho, ho, Western culture's got to go," interest in the debate seems to have peaked, even among the activists. Andrew J. Dworkin, news editor at The Stanford Daily, says that the newest ethnic club on campus is an Irish-American society and that most people remain unsure whether organizers are joking.
Meanwhile, only 70 people showed up for a rally in support of Asian-American studies, and the Daily, which once delegated writers to individual ethnic groups, now puts only two reporters on a general multicultural beat.
Stanford, Dworkin says, is "one of the more responsive universities," and suggests two reasons for the gradual erosion of identity politics: "It may be hard to sustain interest in an issue for a long time. It may be that the demands have been met."
If ethnic studies efforts continue at Harvard, if the number of minority faculty increase, if President Clinton lifts or softens the gay ban that riles ROTC opponents, the internal contradictions of minority student groups may reduce the number of activists and the number of identity-politics issues.
Moreover, the non-activists, having held identity politics at arm's length, will provide little sustaining energy.
And even if Yisei, HQ, the rag and Point of Reference cease publication and fewer identity-politics stories make the front page of The Crimson, most of Harvard, like much of the Class of '93, won't perceive much difference at all.