By signing the petition, Mather students declare that they "have zero tolerance for any form of harassment" and "refuse to consider hostile, cowardly, and criminal acts to be reasonable elements of discourse."

Last week, the House Committee posted a declaration of tolerance entitled "The Mather House Creed" in the dining hall, in response to several incidents of homophobic vandalism in September. Volfova said the House Committee has not responded publicly to the Saturday incident because it does not want to alienate students with a different point of view regarding homosexuality.

Volfova and Lu agreed that the pledge--student-initiated, independent of the House, HoCo and all other University organizations--was a perfect way for the Mather community to voice its support for Muhammad and Harvard's gay community in general.

"The message is much more powerful because it's coming right from the students," said Lu.

Volfova added that the pledge serves to rectify the notion that Mather House is an intolerant, homophobic place.

Halla Yang '00 agreed, saying that the vandalism is clearly the work of one isolated person or a couple of people.

"I want people to know that we're united in our stance of not tolerating harassment of anybody because of sexual orientation," he said.