Playboy sent a similar ad to a Crimson in similar financial troubles during the mid-eighties, when it was again rejected after extensive debate.

"[The question was,] 'Should we be setting this ad policy and put a moral spin on our revenue?'" says Julie L. Belcove '89, a former Crimson executive. "No one was defending Playboy. It was more a question of injecting our politics into our business practices."

But ads for the sexually explicit magazine "Oui" did appear in The Crimson until the late seventies, including Seidman's year as president.

"We weren't comfortable taking all ads," Seidman says. "But we were also broke."

Minority Voices

In 1973, The Crimson was supporting demonstrations against Harvard's investment in African colonies and fighting internally over whether to capitalize the words "black" and "Chicano" in stories.

At the same time, the staff was, by its own estimation, woefully lacking in minority voices.

"We were disturbed by the under representation of blacks and Latinos on staff," says Daniel A. Swanson '74, Crimson president in 1973.

The homogeneity of the staff would continue tobe addressed by Crimson presidents throughout theseventies and eighties and is still one of thechallenges facing today's Crimson executives.

Nicholas B. Lemann '76, Crimson president twoyears after Swanson, says a reporter once came tohim with a list of campus ethnic organizations,having listed The Crimson as a group for Jewishstudents.

"The tenor of The Crimson was suburban,upper-middle-class northeastern Jewish," Lemannsays. "There was a little bit of everybody, butthat was the dominant group."

Executives from the '70s say this stereo-typeof a predominantly white and Jewish Crimsoncontinued to be fairly accurate, despite minorityrecruitment efforts.

"[Minority recruitment] is something we triedhard to do," Chira says. "We did have students ofcolor comp and become editors, but they did nottend to stick around."

Cheryl R. Devall '80-'81, a former Crimsonexecutive, says that minority reporters frequentlyturned from The Crimson to other extracurricularactivities after finishing their comp.

"I think what's probably lost is not one pointof view that any one person of color is going tobring, but the kind of [everyday] discussion thathelps people think twice before making assumptions[about race]," says Devall, who is black.

Devall says these discussions, bred of longhours working together at the paper, would createa sensitivity to racial issues more valuable thansimple racial diversity.