Angela E. Freeburg'03 was ambivalent about leaving her Greenough room as she prepared to head home for the summer two weeks ago.

Not only was she leaving the familiar environment of the Yard, she was also separating from the comfortable community of black first-years. "This year, with the Freshman Black Table and all my friends in Annenberg together, the black population was very visible," Freeburg says.

Since randomization, the black population at Harvard has been dispersed throughout the Houses, and Freeburg is worried that the black population in Cabot House will not provide the comfortable community she has grown used to.

Concerns like Freeburg's have long marked the response to decades of housing reforms.

While randomization and the reduction of blocking group sizes have attracted opposition from many students, minority students often say they are the most hard-hit.

The First Compromise

From 1977 to 1989, students were assigned to Houses through the ordered choice system, in which students could rank their four top House choices. But in 1989, the housing system changed from ordered choice to non-ordered choice, in which students could list four choices but not rank them.

The change was an attempt to diversify Houses that had developed distinct, sometimes ethnically homogenous identities.

The switch came as a compromise between students, who fought to retain ordered choice, and masters, who pushed for complete randomization. Non-ordered choice was implemented for a trial period of four years, and then officially adopted in 1993.

Masters hoped that non-ordered choice would make their Houses better reflections of the College as a whole.

"Harvard goes to great expense to recruit a diversified class, and we think that the Houses should reflect as much as possible a microcosm of the College," Quincy House Master Michael Shinagel said in 1993.

The Change to Randomization

But the non-ordered choice system did not drastically change the ethnic composition of House populations. A survey released in 1992 revealed that the concentrations of some ethnic groups remained unbalanced. For instance, two Houses had 17 and 13 percent black populations, compared to 4 percent in another House.

In response to this persisting imbalance, then-Dean of the College L. Fred Jewett'57 initiated the current system of randomized House assignments. "The purpose of this change is to ensure, as much as possible, that each House contains a broad-ranging and diverse community, representing the various talents, strengths and backgrounds of the college populations," Jewett announced in a 1995 letter.

The decision to move to randomization sparked protests, as students questioned whether the change would actually improve diversity or leave minority students isolated.In May of that year, 200 students gathered in front of University Hall to rally against randomization. Leading the protest were minority students who worried about breaking up the large concentration of minorities in certain Houses.