Only 20 students out of 140 nominal members attended the first meeting of the Ad Hoc Committee on Undergraduate Council Reform last night to discuss ways to increase student interest and involvement in council representation.

Committee chair William M. Jay '98 credited the low turnout of the group to the snow.

"Tonight, because of the snow, we're lucky to get 10 [attendants}," he said.

Officers said they had hoped to use the meeting to create subcommittees, but the small size of the group presented "an unexpected opportunity [for] brainstorming...to think about what is the purpose, function, and mission of student government," said committee vice-chair Susan M. Groppi '98.

Council President Lamelle D. Rawlins '98 identified the main problem for the Reform Committee as a "communications gap" between council representatives and students.

"Ten year down the road, when I look back at Harvard, I'd like to see students who think: When I have a problem I go to the U.C.," said Rawlins.

A central question discussed by committee members was the appropriate role of the council's representation.

"I'd like to see a scene in which people...have an opportunity to be part of student government to represent themselves and their ideas," said Benjamin A. Rahn '99, who joined the council in February.

Committee secretary Shannon K. May '99 pointed the disadvantages of a narrow focus.

"It sounds like this is moving away from representative politics to interest group policies," she said. "The cost of that might decrease overall student involvement beyond what it is now. It leads to a distancing and a radicalization."

Another reform which was dis- SCHOOLSoverwhelming number of [Boston Latin students] come from private, parochial or the Metco programs in the suburban schools," says Alkins.

'Reverse Discrimination'?

But Julia's father, Michael C. McLaugh-lin--the lawyer who filed the controversial suit--believes that there are "no vestiges of past discrimination" remaining. Rather, he believes that the pendulum has swung too far in the other direction, into the realm of "reverse discrimination."

Under the new exam school policy, the top test scorers comprise half the entering class, while to other half is made up of the top scorers from each racial group, in accordance with the proportion of that racial group in the applicant pool.

Although the compromise partly was the result of his suit, McLaughlin denounces it as "race baiting" and "numerical racial warfare."

"A white or an Asian is therefore kept out not because of their performance, but because of the failure of people of his race applying in sufficient numbers," says McLaughlin. "I'm sure there are many students who would have gotten in who are Asian or white who are being kept out by the new quota, and that is fundamentally unfair because we're talking about a governmental entity."