It is ridiculous to hold popular events like Hillary Clinton's speech in the ARCO Forum. Why do the IOP and the Kennedy School cram about 800 people into the awkwardly-shaped space, when they could give some 1,100 people seats in Sanders Theatre?

Avery Gardiner's statement that Sanders cannot be made secure is patently false; Israeli Prime Minister Shimon Peres, Martin Luther King Jr. and many other VIPs have spoken there in the past.

The IOP and the K-School insist on using the Forum because they want fame and prestige. They want the speaker's presence to somehow rub off on their building and give them more credibility, for the next day's New York Times to report that Mrs. Clinton spoke at "Harvard's Kennedy School of Government."

The K-School staffers are so insecure or selfish that they can not conceive of hosting a speaker in a non-Kennedy School building. Since it's the Harvard name and not the K-School's that draws the speakers, the Kennedy School ought to do all it can to let the Harvard community attend the speeches.

Visitors such as Clinton come to Harvard to speak to as many people at Harvard as possible. In their zeal to promote their own names, the IOP and the Kennedy School deliberately thwart their own speakers.