Council Should Be Repaired, Not Abolished

To the editors:

I believe in student government. I believe students deserve a voice on this campus. I believe we have a stake in shaping our education. And I believe that the Undergraduate Council, despite all its ills, despite calls for its dismemberment on this very page (Opinion, Oct. 12), remains the forum for this discussion.

For the last two years, I, like most of the campus, have been a council basher. I delighted in crashes of 'ucvote' and the "found" $40,000 as examples of council incompetence.

However, this year, I decided that I could not truly assess the council and feel right about harshly judging its activities until I first became involved. It simply isn't right to give up on an institution because of limited information and a pervasive campus prejudice. In order to be fair in criticizing, I decided I must first try to change what I perceived to be wrong.

And so I ran for the council. What I have found this year, surprisingly, is an organization with tremendous potential. The council does more than I ever imagined. Take student group funding, for example--the council just passed a budget allocating a record $120,000 for student group grants, stepping in where the administration has failed the students. Because of council involvement, the phone rates were just lowered.

The council is responsible for pushing the week-long intersession proposal through the administration. And who's making the noise for a campus student center to provide office space for student groups? Yup, the council again.

The problem, in the most basic sense, is that students don't care. Voter turnouts are disgraceful, and students rarely use the council to spur campus-wide debate.

Fault undoubtedly falls to the council members themselves, who absolutely should do a better job of relating to the people who elect them. Representatives are elected to represent. Students should let their representatives know what's on their mind. Most likely, in your time at Harvard you have not had a single opportunity to express any of your opinions to your "representatives."

But fault also lies with the student body. Students need to claim their right to vote in elections. Students need to be able to express their displeasure and feel that they are being heard. Students need to influence policy at this University. Until they do, no amount of council reform will give it the student mandate candidates have been screaming about for years. The two seconds that it takes to type 'ucvote' at the fas prompt are two seconds that say to the administration: "Having a student voice matters to me."

Claims that the council is expendable are short-sighted and irresponsible. Allowing the voice of the majority to be completely lost in a sea of special interests is not how a democracy is supposed to work. Is the council broken? Yes, and it has been for years. Let's fix it, let's give students a stake in it, but let's not give up on it.

Rachel L. Brown '01

Oct. 13, 1999

The writer is the Pforzheimer House council delegation leader.

Data Proves Ignorance of Extent of Smoking Risks

To the editors:

Stephen Helfer, recalling the general consensus among his friends in the '50s, concludes in his letter ("Tobacco Risks Widely Known," Oct. 14), "For as long as anyone can remember, smoking has been thought to be very harmful."

I suggest that Helfer would be wise to expand his sample size. Such casual empiricism is not warranted in light of available evidence. In 1954, 41 percent of adults in the U.S. thought that smoking is one of the causes of lung cancer, compared to 66 percent by 1964. Similarly, awareness has increased over time of the link between tobacco use and 25 or so other diseases. The causality is not rationally challenged today. In the '50s, however, the harmful effects of smoking were certainly not, as Helfer glibly declares, widely perceived.

Informed adults should be free to take informed risks--including taking up smoking. Smoking initiation, however, often occurs during adolescence, when awareness of the health harms of tobacco use is limited. Neither is the addictiveness of the habit widely perceived. Furthermore, many studies show that, while youth may be aware of the risk of addiction, they may not personalize the risk.

Among youth, then, cigarette advertising unduly influences free choice. The tobacco industry maintains that its ads are not focused upon this most vulnerable market. Is it coincidence that cigarette marketers target youth-oriented magazines? Is it coincidence that teenage youth are twice as likely as adults to smoke the most heavily advertised cigarette brands? The data has swamped any lenient prior belief I might have held.

Unfortunately, the tobacco industry has turned its eye towards developing countries to compensate for an increasingly hostile regulatory environment and declining market at home. In many countries abroad, cigarette makers, unhampered by even the lightweight regulations that exist in the U.S., are free to advertise or package as they wish--in the process, misleading both adults and youth about the dangers of smoking. A recently published study revealed, for example, that lung cancer was recognized as related to smoking by only 40 percent of both smokers and nonsmokers in China. This sort of documentation is pervasive, from Sri Lanka to Poland to Fiji.

A glaring weakness of the 1997 tobacco settlement is that it did not do enough to prevent the tobacco industry from exporting its death and deceit abroad. I do hope that this federal lawsuit finally solves the problem.

Alexander C. Tsai '98

Oct. 15, 1999

Giuliani's Censorship Idealistic, Insular

To the editors:

It is unfortunate that Bolek Kabala sides with New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani in "The Brooklyn Stink" (Opinion, Oct. 15). Kabala's and Giuliani's viewpoint that publicly funded art should not offend anyone's religious affiliation is both idealistic and insular.

True progress is made when only ideas and beliefs are challenged. However, both Giuliani and Kabala seem to feel that the subject of religion is somehow sacred and should forever remain unchallenged. Maybe it is because they are scared of what they might discover. Is it not possible that by viewing the offending "Sensation" exhibit, visitors might be able to enhance their understanding of their religion? That by viewing the art, which is so personally offensive, one might be able to better understand or even challenge their personal and religious beliefs? It is unfortunate that Giuliani and Kabala are willing to take the risk.

By continually attempting to limit the boundaries of what is publicly "acceptable," America has and will continue to lag behind its European counterpart's social progress. Now nearly two years after its premier in London, "Sensation" has been deemed by the British press as yesterday's news, unrepresentative of today's British art world. However, while the both the culture and the art world of Europe have moved on, America is one again held back by its constant desire not to offend.

Nicholas B. Hobbs '02

Oct. 15, 1999