Beth A. Stewart '00, a self-described conservative council member who nonetheless voted for the transgender bill, says she sees tolerance of different political viewpoints on campus.
"I think the average Harvard student is one, liberal; and two, generally receptive to others' ideas," she says. "There are wacko liberals who draw swastikas on people's doors who don't deserve them and there are radical conservatives who have extreme views, but I think those are extreme cases."
"I think it's a shame that either movement is being characterized by extreme incidents on campus," she says.
Derek C. Araujo '99, president of the liberal Secular Society, says the swastikas were provoked.
"I'm in favor of allowing everyone to express their opinions and to argue them through rational discourse," he says, but adds, "I think there's a slight difference in that other minorities haven't done anything to provoke these incidents against them," Araujo says.
"I'm not saying that anyone has a right to put swastikas on people's doors, but I think [Mitby and Padilla] were partly at fault for having used such harsh rhetoric. I think both parties were wrong," he says.
Defending Free Speech
Despite tension between liberals and conservatives on campus, most students agree that free speech is an important goal.
Myers draws a sharp line between free speech and hate speech.
"I think that while people have a right to express political sentiments, there is a boundary between political speech and explicit threats," he says.
Araujo agrees that free speech is paramount.
"I do have problems with Peninsula's ideology, but if I could paraphrase Voltaire, I would fight to the death for the right to express their ideas," Araujo says.
Mitby's opposition to the council amendment banning discrimination against the transgendered--people born as one gender but who live as the other--apparently sparked the hate letter he received.
But Alex S. Myers '00, Harvard's only openly transgendered student and the center of the debate over the council's transgendered amendment, condemned the letter.
"That is not a proper response at all. It's very infantile. It's very cowardly. It does nothing to help either side and possibly does a lot to hurt," he says. "I think it's a shame people think that's the only forum open to them.
"The prevailing PC-ism of the times says that its okay for me to say 'I don't like Republicans,' but it's not okay for a Republican to say 'I don't like gays,"' he says. "In the real world, it's much easier to be homophobic than liberal. But on a college campus, it's reversed."