So Senior Gift Plus actually worked. For the first time in 400 years, the Harvard Corporation bowed to student calls for something, and an important something at that: divestment from a company which does business in the genocidal state of Sudan.

The mass murder in Sudan is a tragedy of a scope I cannot comprehend. I applaud Senior Gift Plus founders Matthew W. Mahan ’05 and Brandon M. Terry ’05 for bringing it to the forefront of our collective consciousness in a way that could actually effect change in the way the University does business.

But despite their success, Mahan and Terry are missing a more fundamental point about life at Harvard: The Powers That Be don’t give a rat’s ass about what undergraduates want. With the exception of a few low-level deans, the entire bureaucracy is meant to stifle, bully, intimidate, and ignore undergraduates into agreeing with whatever ridiculous hoops they’re expected to jump through.

What Senior Gift Plus shows us is that the best recourse for seniors wishing to give notice they won’t stand idly by while Harvard ignores their soon-to-be former classmates is to withhold Senior Gift. As Senior Gift participation rates are widely used as propaganda by the University to show wealthy alums that undergrads are happy with their College experience and thus that Harvard deserves a donation, the most effective way to voice dissatisfaction is to simply refuse to contribute.

Inasmuch as students are unhappy with their Harvard experience because of Harvard’s likely continuing investment in companies that do business in Sudan, Senior Gift Plus is an effective and appropriate way of withholding Senior Gift.

But if seniors are not genuinely happy with their college experience for other reasons, they shouldn’t shill for Harvard by giving to Senior Gift Plus or to Senior Gift.

Even those who are thrilled by the divestment from PetroChina must acknowledge that it is but a small step towards a Harvard that cares about undergraduates and undergraduate contentment.

For those seniors still on the fence about whether or not they should give to Senior Gift, I’ve made a handy guide that can be used to determine their level of happiness with the Harvard experience. Keep score and check the end for your results.

QUIZ

• Score 1 point for every incompetent or incomprehensible TF (max ten).

• 3 points if you would have changed your concentration because of an awesome course that really piqued your interest and aroused your intellectual curiosity, but you couldn’t because of excessive concentration, Core, and other requirements.

• 2 points if you’re still waiting for cable television in your dorm room.

• 2 points if you think that the only reason Harvard divested from PetroChina is to “wag the dog” and remove attention from the recent scandal concerning Larry Summers.

• 5 points if you’re bothered that, even after making a big deal over divesting from PetroChina, Harvard continues to refuse to disclose whether it invests in other corporations which do business in Sudan.

• 4 points if you don’t understand why Dean of the College Benedict H. Gross ’71 is refusing to accede to the overwhelming student support for a Renewable Energy termbill fee.