DISSENT: Cork the Champagne

We share the staff's general approbation of Radcliffe's historic transformation. Indeed, this transistion is long overdue. However, the staff fails to recognize the many significant dangers in the creation of an institute devoted to the study of gender, and perhaps more importantly, they are sorely misguided in their support of the Ann Radcliffe Trust.

The Radcliffe Institute's mission to study "women, gender and society" may surely result in the production of worthwhile scholarship. It may also result in an outpouring of Leftist, post-modern nonsense. Only time will tell, but surely our enthusiasm must be mitigated when we consider the unfortunate track record of gender studies.

More immediately, the staff's endorsement of the Ann Radcliffe Trust is ill-considered. If the staff truly believes that student groups "addressing the concerns of women" have legitimate claim to funding, then such groups should have no problem receiving their funding from the same general pool as everyone else. The creation of a separate Trust symbolically, and unnecessarily, ghettoizes women's groups on campus.

Further we are confused that the staff, which ordinarily is so unyielding in its defense of the University's non-discrimination policy, does not see the problem that the existence of the Radcliffe Trust represents. Even if the Trust remains in technical compliance with the policy, it will have a difficult time not violating its spirit. Groups likely to receive funding from the Trust will almost always be de facto single sex in their nature.