Alan E. Wirzbicki criticized "the strange victimhood complex among conservatives at Harvard." His editorial surprised me because I know many of the conservatives on campus, and none of them suffer this complex.

Wirzbicki acknowledges that conservatives are underrepresented in the Faculty and tacitly admits that they're usually maligned by the campus press. It might be expected that a group burdened by such bias would fight for redress and vie for special privilege. Some people do expect that, and they perceive a grab for personal accommodation when conservatives poke fun at the institution of victimhood or satirize Harvard's inequitable (on the low side) distribution of minority privilege to the conservative minority here.

However, conservatives don't denounce the hypocrisy of minority status because they want it for themselves. They want a campus where people realize that they're not part of an oppressed group.

People here are fortunate, hard-working individuals at an elite university. At the very least, conservatives have realized this for themselves--making Wirzbicki's characterization of them strange indeed.

Anne L. Berry '01

Sept. 27, 1999

The writer is president of the Harvard-Radcliffe Republican Club