OUSSAMA ZAHR ’04 became the first and only male board member of the Radcliffe Union of Students (RUS) last month. Zahr has already been politically active on campus as the political chair of BGLTSA.

The newly-elected board of the Radcliffe Union of Students (RUS) met with its members last week to discuss the future of the organization for the first time this semester.

The meeting ran as it always has—members shuffled into Adams Small Dining Hall with their trays and talked about diversifying RUS’s constituency and a possible annual publication over their plates of salad and pasta.

But among the twenty students throwing out ideas, sat the first male officer in RUS’s 30-year-old history.

Earlier this month, RUS elected Oussama Zahr ’04 political co-chair, making him the first and only male board member of the student group that was established in 1969 as the student government of the all-women Radcliffe College.

Since the 1999 Harvard-Radcliffe merger, RUS has had to redefine itself as a student group devoted to promoting women’s issues in the community.

And while men have been allowed to run for positions since 1999—as required by the College’s gender equality rules—Zahr’s leadership role reflects the recent push within RUS to incorporate different feminist perspectives.

RUS members say they hope that the election of Zahr will not just be a symbol, but will help the group to reinvigorate its political activist presence on campus.

“It signals a shift RUS has been undergoing over the last few years,” says RUS Co-President Jessica M. Rosenberg ’04. “On our posters it used to say ‘for women,’ but now they say ‘for feminism.’”

For Feminism

Zahr is not a new face in the political scene at Harvard.

Last semester, Zahr spearheaded the campaign of the Bisexual, Gay, Lesbian, Transgender and Supporters’ Alliance (BGLTSA) to heighten campus awareness of transgender issues.

As BGLTSA’s political chair, Zahr orchestrated the plastering of black-and-white posters around campus last November that featured a name and the blunt account of how the person violently died—without any explanation of the motivation behind the posters.

BGLTSA later held a demonstration in front of the Science Center, explaining the posters were part of a campaign to raise awareness of transgender issues for National Transgender Day of Remembrance.

“Those [posters] were put up the day before the awareness to get people to think of the human rights aspect of transgenderism,” says Zahr. “It got people thinking.”

All of the people featured in the posters were transgendered—and died because of discrimination against them.