In Search of a Balanced Pudding Story

To the editors:

In repsonse to your feature story, "Pudding, Public Debate Exclusion of Women," (News, Feb. 22), I am writing as a disappointed reader. I had hoped that this article would finally give an unbiased report of the arguments in this debate, and I was sad to see it fail.

Note the second sentence which states, "women have been barred from performing in the Pudding since its inception 151 years ago." How could women be "barred" when 151 years ago there were no women at Harvard? How could you, the editors, let this charged verb be used? Already in the second sentance the article is misleading the reader. In another example, Jim Augustine is quoted as saying, "There were things being said like, 'Women are not as funny as men.'" Whom is he quoting? I would think that the Crimson need not stoop to reporting hearsay.

Yes I am a member of the Hasty Pudding Theatricals, but I am not asking for you to publish an article in support of the Pudding. As someone caught in the middle of this debate, I would like to see, for my own edification, an unbiased report on the issue. I am disappointed that The HarCrimson cannot provide one.

Geoffrey R. Oxnard '99

Feb. 22, 1999

Advertising and Content Rightly Kept Separate

To the editors:

While I rarely agree with the editorial content of The Crimson, I feel I must respond the letter (Letters, Feb. 23) which implicitly blamed the paper for printing a controversial advertisement.

A reporter once explained to me the importance of ensuring the independence of a paper's editorial and business departments. Keeping these two boards out of each other's affairs guarantees the freedom of writers to report on any and all matters, including the publication's sponsors; if this freedom were suppressed by business interests, a journalist's pursuit of truth would be farcical. Likewise, the advertising board should be able to gain revenue from any sponsors, within broad guidelines of taste, regardless of the editorial board's stated opinion. The Crimson surprisingly showed maturity in publishing an advertisement contrary to its views.

The letter from the Students for Choice, by contrast, displayed a disturbing lack of maturity and analysis. While the writers profess to "welcome overt discussion and opinions regarding the abortion debate," their letter apparently complains that the Crimson has allowed the opposing viewpoint to be presented.

Second, the group deems the advertisement's claims "silly" and "false." Granted, an unsupported claim that the world's population can be housed in Texas seems "silly." But as anyone who read the piece would have understood, this was simply rhetorical hyperbole used to refute overpopulation arguments in favor of abortion.

Students for Choice say that they "do not blame The Crimson," but permeating the entire letter are calls for the "review of information" in the advertisement, and for the "notice [of] the journalistic approach." The group treads lightly in an attempt not to utter the ugly name of censorship, which lurks beneath the surface of the letter. Indeed, the closing line, which deems the decision to publish the advertisement "a disgraceful action on the part of The Crimson," contradicts the group's claim to be holding back blame.

If we are seeking truth in this debate where future lives are at stake, both of mother and child, then let all necessary information be exposed. At heart we're all pro-choice, the real controversy lies with what we decide; how we decide it should be the same: without ignorance.

Jorge Alex Alvarez '01

Feb. 23, 1999

Horowitz Didn't Condemn Universities in Campus Talk

To the editors:

With all respect to the young man who reported my remarks at Harvard Hall (News, Feb. 23), I am not the Colonel Blimp his account makes me out to be. I did not condemn "universities" as your headline writer puts it either. I deplored the situation on liberal arts faculties, which tend to be dominated by an intolerant and exclusionary professorial left. Like most liberal arts colleges, Harvard has but a handful of conservatives among its hundreds of faculty. This is inexcusable. It is the product of a hiring process that has become highly (if often subtly) political and is an abuse of students' academic freedom. This form of academic freedom classically has included the right not to have a professor's views imposed on students through their unequal relationship and for students to have access to many points of view.

There are several instances where your reporter's account does not reflect my views accurately. Let me merely cite his opening summation: "The dangerous beliefs of the New Left are destroying American universities, according to neo-conservative author David Horowitz...." What I said was that the intellectual tradition of the left provided the paradigms that caused self-styled progressive and Marxist governments to kill 100 million of their own people, in peactime, in order to realize their impossible dreams. I further said that while utopianism is primarily now latent in the ideologies of the left, its Siamese twin nihilism, with all its socially corrosive attributes, is not. It is these destructive paradigms and these impossible dreams that are indeed dangerous and that are stil vibrant in the curriculum as taught on campuses like Harvard's.

David Horowitz

Feb. 25, 1999

The writer is the president of the Center for the Study of Popular Culture.