Once again, the final club punching process is drawing to a close. Within the next few weeks, the entire membership of Harvard’s eight male final clubs will begin selecting their new members and will then initiate a class of approximately twenty, mostly sophomore, young men to each club. This final selection generally comes after four official punch rounds, which often include a gathering at the club, a daylong outing to an alumni residence, a date event and a final dinner.[i] Over the course of these four rounds, a pool of roughly 100-150 sophomores per club is narrowed down to the final class.[ii]

Male final clubs have a long history at Harvard. The first club, the Porcellian, was established in 1791. Over the course of the next century, the AD Club for Gentlemen, the Fly Club, the Delphic Club, the Spee Club, the Owl Club, the Phoenix S.K. and the Fox Club were founded as well. The clubs were started by various wealthy male undergraduates, such as J.P. Morgan, who founded the Delphic. [iii] The relative influence of final clubs has waxed and waned over the years. One Harvard alumni from the class of 1974 remembered in a Crimson article that final clubs were not as culturally important among undergraduates in the ‘70s and were, in fact, widely criticized for their exclusiveness. By the ‘80s, however, the clubs’ social prominence was again on the rise. In 1984 the University severed ties with them due to the clubs’ refusal to admit women. [iv] Today, Harvard has no jurisdiction over the male final clubs and has a similar relationship with the female final clubs, of which the first, the Bee Club, was established in 1991. [v]

The issues and controversy surrounding final clubs have only intensified since the clubs’ separation from Harvard in 1984. Sarah Rankin, director of the Office of Sexual Assault Prevention and Response (OSAPR), reports that, on the whole, faculty and administrators view final clubs as a serious social problem in dire need of a solution. This view is shared by many members of the student community: one student, who wished to remain anonymous, remarked that although women have a whole range of experiences, she felt that, at final clubs, the social scene becomes “a lot more sexually aggressive” than in other social spaces on campus. She asserts that girls who wish to attend final club parties without an invitation must wear skimpy clothes in order to gain admission. Furthermore, she calls the Delphic basement “the scariest, darkest place in the world,” remarking that guests are often groped by people they cannot even see, due to the extremely low lighting. Other anonymous sources report that some final clubs play porn on large-screen televisions during their parties, which contributes a hyper-sexualized atmosphere.

As a community, we need to acknowledge, confront and mobilize around these horrifying accounts of final clubs. Interviewees for this article often requested that we meet in private rooms where they would not be overheard. Others, although they expressed an interest in the topic, declined to speak at all. Despite the fact that a large number of Harvard students—members and nonmembers alike—are critical of final clubs, there is a prevalent culture of silence around this topic.

The lack of free-flowing public discourse about the clubs has been largely responsible for the long history of unsuccessful movements to address problematic aspects of final clubs: the 1987 – 1990 initiative, Stop Withholding Access Today (SWAT), led by Perspective founder Lisa Schkolnick ’88; the Women Appealing for Change movement of 1995; and the humorously named Students Against Super Sexist Institutions-We Oppose Oppressive Finals Clubs (SASSI-WOOFCLUBS) of 2004 are all examples of efforts abandoned due to lack of public support and commitment. [vi] As a progressive community, we need to resurrect and lend our support to these movements. We need to overcome our fear of confrontation, our fear of openly criticizing other students, and, above all, our fear of not being welcomed into the clubs themselves and recognize that final clubs need to change. There is a critical mass of people at Harvard who recognize or at least have begun to perceive that final clubs can be sexually dangerous, heteronormative and exclusive spaces. It is critical that these individuals, whether or not they think final clubs must be abolished completely, take a visible stand on this issue by voicing their opinion, talking to each other and to publications and, above all, not going to or joining final clubs. Only by taking these actions will we ever address the myriad social problems created by the clubs.

The rest of this piece will discuss how final clubs encourage notions of male-dominance, promote sexual aggression and create an atmosphere of misogyny and heteronormativity. But, in the interest of being clear and transparent, I will begin by discussing my research methods. First, it is worth noting that I focus on male final clubs largely because there is more information about them, but also because I see the problematic aspects of female final clubs as having their roots in the original male final clubs. Furthermore, I rely heavily on research completed by Alicia Menendez, who conducted her senior thesis research on final clubs in 2005 by interviewing roughly 40 anonymous members of male and female final clubs, and who was also president of the Bee in 2005. Finally, in describing the social problems that are prevalent among final clubs, I seek to address social dynamics that arise in gender-exclusive spaces rather than the moral fiber of final club members. This is an article about social phenomena, not individuals.

***

One response to final club opposition is that the clubs are merely groups of guys who are friends. As Mrs. John W. Appel wrote to Schkolnick in 1988, “Let the boys alone… You can’t legislate friendship.” [vii] But as Professor Daphne Spain of the University of Virginia observes, choices relating to friendship are often “consequences of each individual’s location in the social structure… [as a result,] friendships are more likely to develop within (rather than across) categories of age, race, sex, education or income.” [viii] Therefore, large groups of “friends,” such as those that make up final clubs, often produce homosocial environments— environments in which people with similar social backgrounds interact, learn from each other, and compete.

Although final clubs have made efforts in recent years to diversify their membership, members continue to share socially important characteristics. While Menendez notes, “There are many members who identify themselves as ethnic or racial minorities… They [the clubs] also have policies that accommodate members who cannot afford them,” [ix] one anonymous female source observes that final clubs continue to represent the image of wealth and prestige, despite this diversification. One reason for this continued image of wealth is the fact that final club-owned real estate has a combined value of $15,537,900. Thus, although members of final clubs now come from increasingly varied backgrounds, they are still exclusively male and, furthermore, much of the diversity in social class is counterbalanced by the privilege of access to resources that only a small group of people could ever dream of enjoying.

These two very important similarities work to create a prevalent homosocial environment among members in final clubs. According to Professor Kathryn Farr of Portland State University, the real danger of homosocial relationships is that collective male alliances result in “dominance bonding,” a process in which the fraternizing of individuals who belong to historically dominant demographic groups breeds a heightened sense of superiority in relation to other groups—in this case, non-male students. [x] This sense of superiority is therefore directly linked to what becomes an increasingly derogatory conception of members of less dominant groups.

Interviews with students reveal that Farr’s theory is applicable to final club culture and the club social scenes. It is obvious from interviews with female students that final clubs create an environment that many women perceive as uniquely misogynistic. After overhearing a conversation among final club members about freshmen girls, one female informant in Menendez’s study reflects, “Who knew boys could talk this much sh**??… [homosocial bonding] isn’t always healthy…, it’s like, right from wrong doesn’t seem to factor in as much. Or good from bad.” [xi] Sarah Rankin, director of OSAPR, corroborates the interviewee’s observation, arguing that the final clubs environment often empowers men to act upon pre-existing latent misogynistic and sexually aggressive impulses. The experience of Perspective’s source who revealed that certain clubs play porn during their parties on large screens also suggests that some final clubs promote a pattern of male sexual dominance at their parties.

The misogynistic atmosphere that stems from dominance bonding is exacerbated by an atmosphere of hyper-heterosexuality resulting from what Professor Sharon Bird of Iowa State University calls “hegemonic masculinity.” According to Bird, the competition that takes place between males in a homosocial environment often takes the form of a heterosexual competition.[xii] Professor Joseph Pleck of the University of Illinois also acknowledges this dynamic and argues, “Our society sees the male heterosexual-homosexual dichotomy as a central symbol for all the rankings for masculinity, for the division on any grounds between males who are ‘real men’ and have power and males who are not.” [xiii] Both Bird and Pleck call our attention to an incredibly problematic pressure on males in homosocial environments to prove their masculinity to each other through heterosexual encounters and other behaviors associated with traditional conceptions of masculinity. Primarily, the social value placed on heterosexual conquests in all-male environments both configures women as objects that function as status symbols for males and engenders a heteronormative environment within clubs. Furthermore, as Menendez argues, this competition frequently results in the promotion of qualities such as aggression, independence, strength, and the diminishment of other potential qualities of masculinity such as sensitivity and dependence. Indeed these last two qualities are deemed “effeminate” and therefore often are pushed to the periphery of the male final club members’ identity. [xiv] Dominance bonding in final clubs therefore not only promotes a chauvinistic and aggressive form of masculinity, but also creates an environment that is both heteronormative and degrading to women.

This manipulation of members’ conceptions of masculinity, sexuality and women are all major problems stemming from final clubs and their exclusivity. However, perhaps the most dangerous social problem created by final clubs is the challenges members face in thinking critically and independently about the activities in which they are participating. Relevant to this issue is the concept that many social scientists and psychologists call groupthink, which is, according to the late Dr. Irving Janis, a “mode of thinking that people engage in when they are deeply involved in a cohesive in-group.” [xv] Professor Ronald R. Sims of the College of William and Mary argues that in situations where groupthink prevails, “small groups develop shared illusions and related norms that interfere with critical thinking and reality testing.” [xvi] This deterioration of independent ethical evaluation is noticeable particularly in the interview of one male informant in Mendendez’ study. In response to a question about his reservations about joining the club, he remarks, “At one point, there comes a time where you need to make the decision to believe rather than to rationalize. That’s what they tell you when you go to church—believe and understand later. For a while, I tried to rationalize that it’s single sex, that it’s elitist, and I couldn’t. But now, I can justify that I spend that much time, that much money, because I believe in the club.” [xvii]

This male interviewee seems to have given up critically assessing his behavior in favor of simply “believing” in the club to which he belongs. The failure to assess individual behavior is also apparent in club members’ attitudes toward confrontation with other members. Interviews with a number of women revealed that their ex or current male partners who are in final clubs have explicitly remarked that they feel unwilling to confront other members whose behavior they do not like for fear of causing tension or marring the image of the club. [xviii] The evidence of members’ blind faith in their institutions and of their unwillingness to express personal belief suggests that final clubs are extremely prone to the effects of groupthink. As the interviews with members’ girlfriends suggests, the emphasis placed on loyalty and collective image may work to deteriorate individual ethical assessment mechanisms, leading to an inability to resist participation in or to confront dangerous or offensive behavior.

The final club problem, then, is not necessarily a problem of the members themselves. Final clubs, as inherently exclusive institutions, foster a homosocial environment that creates a whole host of social problems, including intensified notions of male superiority, heightened sexual aggression, heteronormativity, and the inability to ethically evaluate one’s own actions. Under these circumstances, few individuals would be able to act in a way that is respectful of others or themselves. On a practical level, these pressures also create an incredibly unsafe and uncontrolled social space at Harvard. Particularly disturbing in my research about male final clubs was the unwillingness of members to confront the ethical implications of social exclusion and gender-exclusive space. It appears that final clubs not only encourage sexually aggressive and exclusive behavior, but also discourage introspection or questioning of norms that develop in the club community.

In light of these pressures that are inherently part of any community resembling a male final club, I urge the men of 2012 to walk away from final clubs this November. The privilege of being part of a male final club is causally linked to disadvantages associated with the female experience: in accepting the privilege of access to expensive real estate and powerful alumni not available to women due to club policy, you perpetuate the disparity in power across gender prevalent at Harvard and elsewhere. Beyond this conceptual argument against final clubs, on a practical level, final clubs do not cultivate socially beneficial qualities. Membership in any all-male environment does not encourage respect for women and it often does not foster critical thinking and introspection. Don’t become part of the problem: walk away from final clubs this fall and become part of effort to make Harvard a safer and more socially just educational institution.

By Dylan Matthews

Reading Michael Cowett’s attack on the Obama administration for scaling back its missile defense plans in the Czech Republic and Poland, one would think that the Czechs and Poles had somehow been terribly wronged. “Obama’s missile defense plans severely undermine the security of our Eastern European allies,” Cowett wrote, “whose governments have long been planning on this American aid that will now come in diminished form at best.”

If this is the case, someone seems to have forgotten to tell Prague and Warsaw. “Canceling the radar by no means jeopardizes the security of the Czech Republic as the country is safely entrenched in NATO,” Czech Foreign Minister Jan Kohout told the Wall Street Journal when the decision was announced in September. His Polish counterpart, Radoslaw Sikorski, also expressed his comfort with the decision. This reaction makes sense given the opinions of the ministers’ constituents. The Czech public’s opposition to the shield hovered around eighty percent for years before Obama’s decision. The margins in Poland were closer, but still showed at least a plurality opposing the shield. One doubts that The Salient knows what’s good for the Czechs and Poles better than the Czechs and Poles themselves.

It’s worth considering as well from what these Bush-era shields were meant to defend Eastern Europe. As former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice explained it, the shields were meant to defend against long-range missiles from North Korea and Iran. There are so many things wrong with the logic that motivated the shields that is hard to know where to start criticism. For one thing, neither North Korea nor Iran currently possess any missiles with the ability to hit Poland or the Czech Republic. North Korea’s Taepodong-2 missiles could theoretically carry a load 9,000 kilometers, enough to hit either Prague or Warsaw, but the Taepodong-2 has never been successfully tested and disintegrated after 40 seconds on its single launch attempt. While information is sketchy, even the most alarming estimates suggest that Iran’s medium-range ballistic missiles have a maximum range of 2,500 kilometers, not enough to reach either Poland or the Czech Republic.

Even if Iran were to develop successfully a medium-range missile with the capability to hit Poland or the Czech Republic, the Bush-proposed shields would be useless. As James Lindsay of the Council on Foreign Relations explained, the shields only defend against long-range missiles–though even there they are untested­–and are useless against medium and short-range ones. If Iran really wanted to obliterate Polish or Czech cities, it could just use shorter-range missiles, against which the Bush defense shield would be useless. This raises the most obvious objection to this rationale for the shield. Why would Iran or North Korea ever want to attack Poland or the Czech Republic? Perhaps Kim Jong-Il harbors some little-known hatred of the Poles, but this seems like a stretch.

To his credit, Cowett admits the real reason the Bush administration was interested in the missile shield: to defend against Russia, the only country in the region to have both a substantial missile arsenal and a less than warm relationship with Poland and the Czech Republic. Of course, it’s still hard to see why the shield is useful in defending against this vague Russian threat. After all, the US military’s ground-based missile defense system is completely unproven and has a decidedly spotty track record even under the completely unrealistic, easier-than-real-life drills the military has conducted to date. The efficacy of the missile systems is further called into question when one considers that if Russia were to launch loaded missiles, it would surely be smart enough to launch warhead-less dummy missiles alongside them. As the Nobel Laureate in physics Steven Weinberg has explained, these dummies would be nearly impossible to tell from loaded missiles, and unless the missile defense system were able to down every single dummy and real missile, the defense would fail.

So if missile defense is such a complete failure, why do conservatives like Cowett insist that Obama preserve it? For Cowett, the issue appears to be less whether such a system would actually increase the security of Americans, Poles, or Czechs, and more the degree to which it irritates the Russians. According to Cowett, Obama is repeating a “praise-thy-foes-and-punish-thy-friends strategy” that Jimmy Carter apparently originated – a curious claim to make about a president who secured peace for our ally Israel with its largest neighbor. In any case, Cowett argues that however sensible giving up the missile defense system may be, to do so unfairly rewards a “foe,” namely Russia, at the (debatable) expense of our “friends” Poland and the Czech Republic, and without any gain to the United States.

First of all, Cowett is simply wrong when he writes that dismantling the missile defense system did not yield any Russian concessions. Soon after Obama’s announcement that the shield would be canceled, the Russians announced that they planned to support new UN Security Council sanctions against Iran and to increase inspection of nuclear exports. The New York Times reported that this action was quid pro quo for the shield cancellation. Given how much more helpful combating the Iranian nuclear program and internationally transported nuclear material is to the security of America and its allies than a useless missile defense system, this seems like an eminently sensible trade.

More importantly, however, this dated Manichean “friend or foe” worldview is completely detached from America’s real security concerns. Some of Cowett’s narrative is simply false. The Carter administration did not, as Cowett writes, support the Sandinistas in Nicaragua. It supported ousting the brutal dictator Anastasio Somoza, to be sure, but it had a decidedly icy relationship with the Sandinistas and certainly did not support them.

More to the point, international politics is not a spoils system. One should not send “friends” useless weapons systems just to thank them for being good buddies, or needlessly antagonize important nations, like Russia, because of a Cold War-era notion that they are our “foe” and should not be “appeased.” Scrapping the multi-billion dollar failure that was the Polish/Czech missile defense system resulted in a concrete increase in American security, through Russia’s UN action, and saved taxpayer money.

Review: Leonard Bernstein: The Political Life of an American Musician

296 pages, Hardcover, University of California Press, $24.95

To anyone who recently suffered through a grueling set of midterms, take heart: Leonard Bernstein received a C in one of his music classes as a Harvard undergraduate, and things worked out pretty well for him. As a conductor, a composer and an educator, Bernstein had an indelible impact upon the American musical community. In 1943, he made his conducting début with the New York Philharmonic, of which he would eventually become music director. Over the next five decades, he went on to compose some of the most famous works in the American repertoire, from musical theater to symphonies to ballets. He demonstrated his commitment to teaching in a variety of forms such as the Norton Lectures at Harvard and the New York Philharmonic Young People’s Concerts, joyous celebrations of musical expression that incorporated everything from Beethoven concertos to Beatles tunes.

But while Bernstein’s stunningly successful musical career makes for a rosy and inspirational story, it does not convey the whole of his life and work. Barry Seldes’ fascinating new book, Leonard Bernstein: The Political Life of an American Musician, brings to light another essential element of Bernstein’s life: his interaction with the political landscape of his era.

The twentieth century, in Bernstein’s words, was “the century of death.” It was the century of “fifty, sixty, seventy years of world holocausts, of the simultaneous advance of democracy with our increasing inability to stop making war, of the simultaneous magnification of national pieties with the intensification of our active resistance to social equality.” As these sentiments make abundantly clear, Bernstein’s music-making did not take place in an aesthetic and cultural vacuum, but rather in conjunction with a deep awareness of the tumultuous political climate in which he lived. And from the beginning of his career, Bernstein linked his political views to his musical endeavors.

In 1937, while still a college student, he showed his solidarity with the Communist composer Marc Blitzstein by staging a production of Blitzstein’s The Cradle Will Rock, a pro-union allegory about corporate greed and corruption. Even liberal Cambridge banned the production, forcing Bernstein to move it from the city to the Harvard campus at the last minute. Bernstein’s leftist sympathies soon began to extend beyond musical statements to more explicitly political activities. Seldes’ book provides numerous examples of the causes Bernstein supported during the 1940s, which ranged from the Joint Anti-Fascist Refugee Committee to the National Council on American-Soviet Friendship to Daily Worker petitions supporting Communist political candidates. His actions did not go unnoticed; the accumulation of material for Bernstein’s FBI file had begun in 1937 and would eventually comprise over eight hundred pages. By 1950, he had been blacklisted by not only by CBS, which had broadcast his early New York Philharmonic concerts, but also effectively by the Philharmonic itself. Ultimately forced to sign a non-communist affidavit, Bernstein managed to salvage his career, but only at the price of what he referred to as a “ghastly and humiliating experience.”

His musical career revitalized, Bernstein’s commitment to political activity remained strong. The next major scandal to befall him came in the form of the fundraiser he hosted for the Black Panthers in 1970. This event is infamous, but Seldes supplements it with new detail about the FBI’s response, which included sending Bernstein antagonistic, anonymous letters.

But how did Bernstein’s politics interact with his music? Seldes offers the compelling argument for repeated correlation between Bernstein’s compositional projects and the political backdrop against which they were created. His 1964 Chichester Psalms is a choral symphony of texts that deal with the themes of peace and unity, a fitting counterpart to the Left’s political optimism in the early 1960s. But by 1977, Bernstein had shifted his focus to works like Songfest. Another choral symphony, this work expresses no sense of unity and peace. It is a fragmented collection of American poems set to various styles of music, many of them dark in tone and subject matter. With works like Songfest, Seldes asserts, Bernstein “made quite clear his ambivalence about American culture and politics.” Considering the conservative resurgence taking place around him, Bernstein’s choice to compose non-patriotic, non-celebratory music seems unsurprising.

While it may be tempting to dismiss these correlations as pure coincidence, Bernstein himself acknowledged a clear relationship between his musical and political views. His 1973 Norton Lectures at Harvard University theorized that tonal music was worthwhile precisely because it could express shared human emotions and morality. The musically centerless form of atonality, he thought, paralleled the morally centerless world that could permit totalitarianism and war, and was thus unacceptable. Though this point of view alienated Bernstein from most of his musical contemporaries, he remained convinced that tonality was important not just for its aesthetic value, but for its moral and social importance in uniting people through music.

Despite the strength of this conviction, though, Bernstein never really succeeded in producing a work that melded musical greatness and sociopolitical significance. Why? For Seldes, the answer again lies in politics. Bernstein’s career was framed by the culturally hostile 1950s on one side and the Reagan conservatism of the 1980s on the other. These political climates were inhospitable to the composition of a grand, eloquent musical representation of American society. For Bernstein, music and politics would have to remain forever separate.

Ironically, the only notable weakness of Seldes’ book parallels Bernstein’s: like his subject, the author has difficulty finding the perfect balance between political background and the remainder of his work. Long sections that contain no mention of Bernstein or his story can feel like U.S.-history textbook chapters. But on the whole, the book takes a fascinating journey through Bernstein’s musical and political career. Seldes’ analyses of politics and music are equally elegant, and clear enough that one does not need a musical background to appreciate the story he tells. To anyone interested in American culture or American politics, Leonard Bernstein: The Political Life of an American Musician offers a compelling and intriguing account of an extraordinary man.

Senator Edward Kennedy’s passing last month caused social and political shockwaves across America. Here in Massachusetts, amid the Senator’s wish that lawmakers grant Governor Deval Patrick the power to appoint Kennedy’s successor, a special election to fill the vacant seat has been scheduled for January of next year. With party primaries in December, Perspective takes a closer look at four likely contenders for the Democratic nomination.

Martha Coakley

Martha Coakley became the Attorney General of Massachusetts in 2007.  During her twenty-plus years of work in the public sector, she has distinguished herself by engaging with a variety of thorny issues, particularly child abuse and public safety.  And during her short tenure as Attorney General, she has already indicated a clear commitment to liberal values.

Coakley prosecuted and oversaw a number of noteworthy cases in Massachusetts, first as an Assistant District Attorney in Lowell District Court and later as District Attorney of Middlesex County, which includes Cambridge, Lowell and many of the north-of-Boston suburbs.  In 1991, she took charge of the DA’s Child Abuse Protection Unit.  In this capacity, she prosecuted, among other cases, the Commonwealth v. Louise Woodward, in which an au pair was convicted of second-degree murder after a baby died in her care.  As District Attorney, Coakley also oversaw several prominent cases dealing with sexual abuse among Catholic Church clergy.

The issue of public safety has been central to Coakley’s career – for example, she advocated for increased funding for the analysis of DNA evidence.  On September 16, she picked up a key endorsement from the 22,000-member Massachusetts Police Union.  The group’s executive director, Jim Machado, called her “a tireless advocate for safer communities and prosecuting criminals.”  On a funnier note, Coakley perhaps took this commitment to safety a bit too seriously when she defended the reaction to the Aqua Teen Hunger Force incident in 2007, during which police shut down traffic due to the presence of menacing-looking electronic advertising devices around the city.  “It had a very sinister appearance,” she claimed. “It had a battery behind it, and wires.”

But what would Coakley’s priorities be as a senator?  Her recent record as Attorney General provides some compelling clues with respect to the financial crisis, gay rights and health care.

Coakley was one of the first – and remains one of the only – law enforcement officials to investigate mortgage lenders and institute consumer protection measures.  Since taking office in 2007, she has worked to ensure that lenders are held responsible for predatory loans.  This past May, her office reached a $60 million settlement with Goldman Sachs after an investigation of their subprime lending practices.

With respect to gay rights, in July 2009, Coakley’s office filed a federal complaint challenging the constitutionality of the Defense of Marriage Act. This was a bold and proactive move that sets her apart from the other candidates for Kennedy’s seat.  On the subject of health care, Coakley played a role in enacting the 2006 Massachusetts health care reform, which has resulted in nearly-universal health care statewide.  She created a Health Care Division within her office to focus on the new law and oversee Massachusetts hospitals, and also appointed delegates to health-care-related councils, including the Quality and Cost Council.  Coakley has also filed numerous lawsuits against pharmaceutical companies and health insurers who engaged in deceptive practices.  Coakley has indicated that as a senator, she would support an individual mandate and a public option.  Indeed, she has made health care a focal point of her campaign thus far, stating in an e-mail to supporters, “I am running for U.S. Senate to help fix our badly broken health care system once and for all.”

Stephen Pagliuca

Occupying the perennial “Massachusetts businessman” slot is Stephen Pagliuca, a venture capitalist who co-owns the Boston Celtics and is the managing director at Bain Capital.  On September 17, Pagliuca affirmed his interest in running for the seat, aided by Governor Deval Patrick’s former campaign manager Doug Rubin and whatever part of his $400 million net worth he plans to use on the campaign.  In his speech, Pagliuca linked himself to Senator Kennedy, saying, “I pledge to honor him with a campaign that focuses on making it possible for more and more of our fellow citizens to realize the American dream.”  But Pagliuca’s ties to businessmen-turned-politicians of Massachusetts may be more concrete than his ties to Senator Kennedy, as he contributed funding to Mitt Romney’s unsuccessful 1994 attempt to unseat the senator. Pagliuca’s businessman narrative and his personal resources are more likely to help him on the campaign than his political history.

Alan Khazei

Meanwhile, Alan Khazei, the co-founder of community service organization City Year, has announced his intention to run, in a statement thanking “the thousands of individuals who convened on Facebook” to push for his candidacy. Khazei is also the founder and CEO of Be the Change, Inc., an organization whose mission is to coordinate and support the political goals of nonprofit organizations. He will take a leave of absence from this post to run for Senator Kennedy’s seat. Khazei is likely to tie himself to both Senator Kennedy and President Obama’s outspoken support of community service organizations, including Americorps, of which City Year is a forerunner. Khazei says of his background, “I have dedicated myself to empowering people from all backgrounds to make a difference and strengthen our democracy.” Khazei’s campaign has already begun calling students connected to the Harvard Democrats, indicating an interest in riding the wave of youth support, which carried Obama forward last year. Some of his target audience may recognize Khazei from his appearance on the Colbert Report in February.

Michael Capuano

Congressman Mike Capuano currently serves as representative from the 8th district of Massachusetts, which includes Cambridge, Somerville, and the northern parts of Boston. Over the decade that Capuano has been in the House, he has developed a solid, if not remarkable, liberal voting record and is considered by many to be one of Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s trusted lieutenants. However, a recent article in the Boston Phoenix pointed to possible connections between Capuano and questionable activity involving the PMA group, a now-defunct Washington-based defense lobbying firm.

Before coming to Congress in 1998, Capuano served as mayor of Somerville for eight years. In the 1998 election, when running in New England’s most democratic electoral district, Capuano was able to mobilize his city’s political machine and squeak past a great number of primary opponents with a plurality that accounted for less than 30 percent of the Democratic vote.

In the House, Capuano has established himself as a solid supporter of the Democratic establishment and liberal values. Lauded for his efforts to increase international aid funding and for his commitment to the victims of the conflict in the Sudan, he also serves on the committees for Transportation and Infrastructure, House Administration, and Financial Services. The last saw Capuano absolutely shine in February during a hearing on the use of federal funds by the first beneficiaries of the Troubled Asset Recovery Program (TARP). In response to executives’ admission that their companies continued to engage in risky financial practices even after the bailout, Capuano launched into an impassioned diatribe. In a particularly inspired section, he likened the glum bankers to both Girl Scouts and bank robbers:

“You come to us today on your bicycles after buying Girl Scout cookies and helping out Mother Teresa, telling us, ‘We’re sorry, we didn’t mean it, we won’t do it again, trust us.’ Well, I have some people in my constituency that actually robbed some of your banks. And they say the same thing. They’re sorry, they didn’t mean it, just let them out.”

With evident distaste, Capuano continued, “I don’t have one single penny in any of your banks. Not one.”

In 2007, just months after the Democrats wrested control of the House from the Republicans, Capuano was handpicked by Nancy Pelosi as Chairman of the Speaker’s Task Force on Ethics. In this capacity, he has greatly increased standards for transparency within the House of Representatives.

However, that transparency may now come back to haunt him, as his campaign was recently reported to have been the recipient of tens of thousands of dollars in campaign contributions from the now-shuttered PMA defense lobbying group, which, by some metrics, was one of the ten largest in Washington. The group is at the center of a scandal involving Pennsylvania congressman John Murtha, who may be indicted soon on charges of corruption. Murtha, who was the chair of the subcommittee that writes the Defense Department’s budget, received huge contributions from PMA. While no direct link has been drawn between Capuano and any wrongdoing, his political rivals may well try to make hay out of the closeness of Capuano and Murtha as well as Capuano’s role as the Ethics Task Force Chair.

Perspective: Why did HUDS remove hot breakfast?

Anonymous HUDS Employee: For financial savings through labor cuts. Harvard spends a lot of money on benefits for its employees. That is where the real saving are. Removing hot breakfast was going to allow HUDS to get rid of 24 employees, 12 cooks and 12 servers. But what nobody realized is that these people also cooked and served lunch. So in the end no one lost their jobs.

Perspective: No one was fired?

AHE: Not exactly, they were rehired through a bidding process. Most employees got the same job back. Eliot and Kirkland have one cook for breakfast now. Last semester Kirkland and Eliot each had their own cooks to make the grill items for breakfast.

Perspective: Was he laid off?

AHE: No, they just moved him around. There we no layoffs because there are enough positions to be filled.

Perspective: So that cook could just have stayed in Kirkland House? He didn’t have to be moved around.

AHE: Well, rehiring was done as a bidding process based on seniority.

Perspective: This all sounds very unnecessary.

AHE: In the end, basically, yes. Last year Harvard University offered early retirement for people within FAS. This included everybody, so people from dining services took early retirement. Between early retirement and the biding process that meant there were extra positions.

Perspective: What hours does the breakfast and lunch staff work?

AHE: It depends on the house. Usually 6am-3pm or 7am-4pm, but we work for 8 hrs plus two half hour meal breaks that we don’t get paid for.

Perspective: So is the dinner shift a part time position?

AHE: No, employees that work the dinner shift come in at 11:30am.

Perspective: Have there been hour cuts as a result of the removal of hot breakfast?

AHE: I don’t know. You have to talk to the management of HUDS. They should release the numbers saying how many full-time employees they had before the hot breakfast cut, and how many more part-time workers they have now. HUDS has something called full- time equivalence. So if they have two employees working 20 hours, that’s one full-time equivalence.

Perspective: Is there any significant savings from removing the hot foods?

AHE: Well, HUDS also increased prepared packaged foods that they offer in the houses. They are offering more yogurts, cottage cheese, hard boiled eggs, more expensive foods. Is HUDS really offering less food? Isn’t the same amount of people still eating breakfast?

Perspective: How has the removal of hot breakfast affected students?

AHE: Before, upperclassmen were welcome to eat at Annenberg, but now it is almost mandatory if you want a hot breakfast.

Perspective: Annenberg seats 600 people. How many people show up for breakfast?

AHE: The number is slowly falling. It depends on the day of the week. This week has not been very busy, but the previous two weeks 1300 people showed up for breakfast a day.

Perspective: What happens to the quality of food when you cook for 1300 in a facility that is meant for half that?

AHE: When we are busy we can’t keep up. Because of all the eggs that need to be cooked there is not enough grill space for breakfast entrees, so frozen foods, such as Egg-o waffles, are put in the ovens and served.

Perspective: How does the current demand for breakfast at Annenberg affect the people working there?

AHE: Unfortunately most students come after 8:30am, so we get a rush of students between 9-10:30. We close at 11 but we still have to clean the floors, the servery, take the breakfast foods away, clean all the dishes, and then get ready for lunch. So what happens is breakfast runs into lunch. So employees have to stagger their lunch hour, and can no longer eat as a group. Some people will clean and get ready for lunch while others eat, then they switch.

Perspective: Is this causing an increase in the possibility of injury?

AHE: I think so. If students have a 10am class then they all want to put away their dishes at 9:45. So there are these huge lines by the belt, and only two people in the back collecting dishes.

Perspective: Will things cool down now that students’ schedules are stabilizing?

AHE: Normally, as the year progresses, less people show up for breakfast. But I worry about finals week. Everyone is going to want a big breakfast before a test, but the only dining hall with hot breakfast is Annenberg. What is going to happen when every student on campus comes in for breakfast, and why didn’t Harvard consider these scenarios before they removed hot breakfast from the 12 houses?

In late August, Japanese voters staidly cast the long-ruling Liberal Democratic Party out of power. The election was marked with few protests, and after the results were in and a landslide victory for the opposition secured, there was nothing resembling the jubilant celebration seen after Election Day in America. Yet this restrained demeanor hardly captures the landmark importance of the victory of the center-left Japan Democratic Party (JDP), which laid the groundwork for a revitalization of Japanese society.

In America, there is a tendency to idealize Japan. Indeed, there is often an assumption of economic prosperity, of modern convenience, of global partnership, of tried democratic procedures; in short, a well-oiled system that has been thriving and growing from the end of the Second World War.

Yet on closer inspection, things have not been rosy in Japan for much of the past two decades. It has been losing more and more of its revenue from exports to developing economies such as those of South Korea and China, its banking system has proved woefully inadequate to deal effectively with the challenges of the recent financial crisis, the country’s social welfare net has enormous holes, and its politics have been plagued with cronyism and corruption.

To a large extent, the nation’s progress has been impeded by a stifling bureaucracy and a knee-jerk resistance to change which must be linked to the five-decade long rule by the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), which steadily became increasingly conservative and unobligated to form coalitions or to initiate reform.

The ousted Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) had exercised nearly complete control over Japanese politics since its inception in 1955. Because of the disproportionate electoral value of rural areas, the LDP was able to maintain control of the country by enacting tariffs and subsides in an effort to win the support of rice farmers. With the countryside as a base, the LDP won over big business by expanding their policies of protectionism to large firms which boomed during the sixties and seventies.

With both the rice farmers and national big business squarely satisfied, the LDP had neither the incentive nor the desire to change the status quo. It is little wonder that Japanese politics became increasingly ethically murky as well as top-heavy in recent decades. Eager political aspirants would have to be vetted by a system that rewarded loyalty, bureaucracy, and thinking well inside the established box.

August’s power shift has great potential to fundamentally change the way business is conducted in Japan. The overwhelming victory of JDP, which won 308 out of 480 seats in the Diet, Japan’s lower house, provides the new government under Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama, who currently enjoys a 71 percent approval rating, with a clear mandate for change. On the top of the list of priorities is to trim the enormous corps of civil servants, who along with the ousted LDP are seen as culpable for the country’s massive stagnation. This paring may also help reduce Japan’s herculean $9-trillion national debt.

Predictably and laudably, the new center-left government also has plans for a variety of social reforms. Hatoyama has spoken of revamping the social security network as well as creating incentives for raising children in an effort to counteract the dramatic aging of the Japanese population.

Additionally, Hatoyama is the first Prime Minister to have publically addressed the issue of Japanese atrocities committed against Koreans and Chinese in the first part of the 20^th century. Indeed these statements mark a shift in Japanese foreign policy that will likely be characterized by more open dialogues between Japan and its neighbors as well as an increased diplomatic independence from the United States. Japan is scheduled to withdraw its troops from Afghanistan in next year, and may seek a leadership position among developed countries in the fight to reduce carbon emissions.

These characteristically leftist proposals can only be seen as a welcome change to the immobility that characterized the late LDP years. The results of last month’s election give credence to the notion that Japan is moving towards a political system characterized by legitimate competition. In any case, the potential for this scenario and the recent turn to the left have invigorated Japan profoundly.

Most professors at Harvard College don’t face monetary pressure to advocate certain viewpoints. The scholars teaching our classes say what they truly believe, whether it is that Reagan-era economics are fundamentally sound, or that folklore and mythology are actually relevant. Elsewhere in the University, however, monetary considerations are increasingly jeopardizing academic freedom. The most prominent example is the situation at Harvard Medical School (HMS) that has prompted University officials to review the HMS conflict of interest policy and University-wide regulations governing faculty interaction with the private sector.

The issue at hand concerns the relationship of HMS faculty to the pharmaceutical industry, and the impact of that relationship on the education of HMS students. Students felt that their professors were no longer saying what they truly believed, but instead what they had been paid, directly or indirectly, to say. The result is a significant HMS student-led movement to separate classroom from pharmaceutical boardroom. The potential for conflicts of interest arises in a surprisingly large number of cases. Faculty laboratories, clinical research, and endowed chairs are often funded at least in part by a pharmaceutical company. It is therefore easy to see how these profit-seeking firms can dilute academic purity. For example, a professor who runs a successful clinical trial of Pfizer’s latest heart-disease drug and researches its effects in his/her laboratory might be inclined to promote the drug as a treatment for the condition in his/her cardiology class.

Many medical school faculty thus find themselves having to keep their professional affiliations, and even research results, out of the classroom. Indeed, many within the HMS student movement are advocating policies that would facilitate just such a separation: they call for greater limitations on the interactions that pharmaceutical companies are allowed to have with students, whether directly or indirectly through funding educational programs. The education of tomorrow’s doctors, argue the students, should be free of the bias inherent in the private sector. The movement has led to an HMS policy that requires all faculty and teachers to fully disclose their industry ties in the classroom – a move that no other medical school has yet taken.

However, HMS may not be leading the way in regulating conflicts of interest; in fact, the school may even be far behind the curve. A recent report by the American Medical Students Association (AMSA) gave HMS an “F” grade on its conflict of interest policies. The medical school performed poorly in every single area of AMSA’s scorecard. For example, HMS has “no policy, or a policy unlikely to have a substantial effect on behavior” regarding the ability of private companies to offer gifts to physicians in Harvard’s hospitals that encourage them to prescribe a certain therapy. According to AMSA, the school has been unable to show that it promotes understanding of the impact that financial conflicts of interest make on physicians’ decision-making. Also, there is reportedly no oversight mechanism or explicit sanctions for noncompliance with current regulations.

These findings ought to concern both students and patients at Harvard-affiliated hospitals. The fact that other leading medical schools such as UPenn and Columbia received an “A” from AMSA suggests that medical schools do not necessarily face a tradeoff between institutional excellence and conflict of interest regulations. There are multiple factors explaining Harvard’s failing grade. A primary reason is that the University does not own any of its affiliate hospitals. This separation increases the difficulty of imposing or strengthening regulations, but does not make such action impossible. Harvard’s intransigence might thus be traced to an institutional culture of engaging too readily with pharmaceutical industry players: the previous dean of the medical school, for example, sat on multiple pharmaceutical company boards during his tenure, and several faculty are currently under Senate investigation for conflicts of interest.

The medical school’s response to student pressure, the AMSA report, and a flurry of media attention has been to convene a student-faculty committee under the current dean, Dr. Jeffrey Flier, to evaluate conflict of interest policy. The committee is still in session and actively soliciting input from medical students and faculty. Policy changes are expected to be implemented within the next few years, though no definite timeline has been set.

It should be noted, however, that the two sides observers expected to clash in the committee – those in favor of pharmaceutical interaction versus those opposed – agree more than they disagree. According to Vijay Yanamadala, a second year medical student at HMS and a 2007 graduate of Harvard College, “everyone agrees that there should be one-hundred percent transparency in all interactions between faculty and industry and an appropriate amount of regulation to ensure that transparency exists.” Where the two camps differ, he says, is “on the finer points of to what extent these interactions should be limited.” The media’s portrayal of the ideological clash, Yanamadala adds, puts things “in a much more dramatic light than they really are.”

While the medical school un-dramatically formulates the next generation of conflict of interest policies, it is worth considering what impact such policies could have on the education of medical students, and even undergraduates heading into the medical profession. Doing so requires recognition that pharmaceutical companies’ interactions with faculty in the research and clinical capacities do not necessarily translate into changes in classroom teaching, even though such interactions draw the most ire and earned Harvard the failing grade.

Many students are in fact calling for increased interaction between medical students and the pharmaceutical industry. Such students carefully distinguish from increased interaction between the industry and faculty, and indeed many support tighter regulations for such relations. They are instead calling for medical students to have greater exposure to industry during the first and second years of medical school, a time when students have virtually no opportunities to interact with firms. Yanamadala asserts that students begin interacting with industry representatives during clinical rotations in their third and fourth years of medical school, and will continue to do so for the rest of their careers. “Artificially limiting these sorts of interactions during the first and second years,” he says, “doesn’t really make sense.”

Yanamadala and others also advocate for continued interaction between faculty and industry, albeit with full transparency and proper regulations. The argument in favor of such interactions concerns a fact at the heart of the issue: that pharmaceutical companies produce the medicines that doctors, and ultimately patients, rely on. Yanamadala continues, “these companies have relied on interactions with doctors and with faculty whose expertise is transferred to industry in order to develop new technologies. Trying to restrict these interactions now would really jeopardize our future potential to get discoveries in academia out to the clinics for use in patients.”

The balancing act, of course, comes in regulating academic-industry interactions in ways that ensure they are ethical without stifling them altogether. However, it is also be vital to teach medical students, as early in their education as possible, how to recognize and deal with bias from all sources, including the academic literature. In judging how Harvard Medical School’s curriculum deals with bias in the context of pharmaceuticals, one need only look to the AMSA scorecard. In this area, HMS earned as low a grade as it did on every other metric on the AMSA scorecard, raising concerns about how well HMS will perform this vital task. To do so, it will need faculty to carefully guide students, especially at early stages. The school will thus have to combine increasing faculty regulations and responsibilities with an increased industry presence in the early stages of medical school.

The natural question that arises is what, if anything, will persuade leading academic institutions such as Harvard to change their conflict of interest policies. Given that pharmaceutical companies pour millions into academia (for the most part with good intentions and outcomes), the incentives seem stacked in favor of the industry. One might think that student pressure would work against this, and to an extent it certainly does. However, the students have few bargaining chips. Barring them making the radical move of withdrawing from medical school, they have few ways to exert pressure.

Also of concern is the fact that Harvard and other top medical schools will continue to attract talented pre-medical students to their ranks, regardless of their conflict of interest policies. This is primarily because pre-medical students almost never decide where to attend medical school based on such policies. Ravi Parikh ’09, who is currently deciding where he will attend medical school starting this fall, says he will make his decision based on “the strength of the education, the curriculum, accessibility of faculty, the school’s resources, and my familiarity with the school.” These factors are what most pre-medical students would (and should) consider.

However, most of these considerations – especially a school’s resources and the curriculum – are directly impacted by conflict of interest policies. The result is that pre-medical students, while making the right decision for their future, often reward the mistakes of their choice medical school’s past. No student should have to turn down a world-class education because of institutional misdemeanors, but what are pre-medical students to do when a school accumulates the resources it needs by subordinating its academic interests, and potentially its curriculum, to the private sector? The onus is thus on medical schools, especially those with high levels of funding and prestige, to self-regulate faculty-industry actions appropriately while giving students the exposure to industry necessary to make informed decisions in their clinical careers.

This is not to say that cases of misconduct in faculty-industry interactions are the exclusive fault of the medical schools themselves; the industry itself is as much to blame. Of course, the industry is an easy target: a 2005 Harris poll revealed that the public perceives the pharmaceutical industry as one of the least honest and trustworthy, better only than the likes of big oil and tobacco. The negative perception of pharmaceutical companies pervades much of academia as well, because pharmaceutical research is believed by some to be of lesser academically legitimacy.

Chemistry concentrator Jeffrey Holder ’09, however, sees things differently. After an internship in medicinal chemistry at Eli Lilly & Co., Holder believes that industry scientists, “are some of the best out there.” The chemists, he says, “have less than one-hundred days from the identification of a target molecule to devise a synthetic route with minimum steps to scale up its production to hundreds or thousands of kilograms of product.” Indeed, many of the best and brightest researchers head to industry precisely because of the scientific rigor that parallels academia in depth and competitiveness.

Another reason they go into industry, however, is to make an impact on human disease, often more directly than can be made in an academic research laboratory that is not part of a drug pipeline. Says Holder, “the way that the researchers in industry talk about the properties of a drug is always in terms of what the patient needs. It’s never just in terms of the science; it’s in terms of the patient.” Indeed, as Parikh notes, “without the pharmaceutical industry, there would be no such thing as medicine.” The implication with regards to medical school conflict of interest policies is that pharmaceutical companies, for all their shortcomings, still ought to be viewed as institutions that prioritize human well being as much as academic hospitals do – qualified, of course, by the profit motive inherent in their interactions that necessitates careful regulations. Viewing them as such will lead to the most balanced and productive policies, and guide efforts such as those at HMS – not towards excluding pharmaceutical companies entirely, but rather towards encouraging collaboration with them in ways that harness their desire and ability to make socially beneficial scientific discoveries.

The scope of these issues extends far beyond undergraduates who are headed to medical school or biochemical research. Their impact is broad insofar as doctors, whose patients will include the pre-med and non-pre-med alike, receive their education from institutions that have close ties with the private sector. Even the most prestigious of those institutions, such as Harvard Medical School, have much work to do with regards to regulating their faculty’s relationship with industry players; their approach will hopefully be based on a thorough understanding of the ways the companies interact with faculty and students, the necessity of those interactions, and the nature of the companies themselves.

With the onset of the economic crisis, Harvard has justified layoffs by describing its commitment to its employees as a secondary responsibility. Last week, as he addressed faculty, staff and student leaders in Sanders Theater, FAS Dean Michael D. Smith suggested that some FAS jobs may no longer be “necessary” in light of Harvard’s growing need to cut its budget. The understanding that some Harvard workers are unnecessary to our community is echoed by recent Harvard Crimson editorials, one of which stated, “Harvard is under no obligation to keep employees it does not need”. Both the official justification of the layoffs and the stance offered by the Harvard Crimson suggests that Harvard’s commitment to its workers is contingent on the favorableness of the economic climate.

This view is flawed in its failure to recognize Harvard’s influential role in the lives of thousands of workers and their families. By virtue of the sheer size of its staff, Harvard offers itself not only as a major source of income but also as a community to thousands of low-wage employees. Dismissing the lowest paid workers deprives many families of their only source of income and health insurance. Indeed, in a recent video aired by SLAM on YouTube, Bedardo Sola, a current worker at Harvard, said that losing his job could even have endangered the life of his daughter, whose healthcare costs depended on his salary from Harvard. Now reinstated in his former position as a result of SLAM’s advocacy, Sola need not fear for his family’s wellbeing; this, however, is not likely the case for the 30-40% of contracted workers who were recently cut from Harvard’s payroll.

Layoffs disrupt and may even ruin the lives of Harvard workers. Of course, sacrifices are inevitable in this economic climate, but through its recent budgetary decisions, Harvard has failed to give appropriate weight to the burden it is placing on its workers, many of whom need their jobs to sustain an livable conditions for their families. Yardfest, ice cream socials, extravagant faculty dinners at Annenberg, the thousands of pens and fliers from Advising Fortnight have all, among other extravagances, been prioritized over the livelihood of our staff. Moreover, as of yet, Harvard has not complied with the Cambridge City Council’s request that Harvard make cuts in the wages of high-paid academic staff and professors instead of laying off lower-wage workers, even though paying faculty at Stanford University’s rates rather than Harvard’s would save roughly $4.5 million. Though recent cuts in house budgets bode well for more equality in Harvard’s fiscal scheme, remaining extravagant practices send a clear message that in an unfavorable economic climate, low-wage workers are the first part of our community to go—even before the truly unnecessary luxuries we continue to enjoy.

To justify this backward fiscal scheme, defenders of Harvard’s budget cuts argue that the university’s primary goal is education, not job generation. We respond that in laying off workers while continuing to finance Yardfest and other indulgences, Harvard is acting irresponsibly not only as an employer, but also as an educational institution. As one Harvard Crimson editorialist observes, “our natural reaction is likely to include telling the administration to preserve undergraduate life at all costs” – but, as the Crimson writer asserts, Harvard administrators and students must resist this mentality. An undergraduate experience that is protected from the economic crisis at the expense of low-wage workers’ livelihood is not a quality educational experience, but a potentially disastrous illusion. With Harvard’s current fiscal scheme, many students are exposed to the recession only theoretically in economics classes or by reading the newspapers. By “preserving undergraduate life,” Harvard is shielding its students from an enormous global issue and in doing so is producing a class of policymakers, economists, and academics who are out of touch with one of the most important realities of our time.

To sum up, Harvard should more fairly distribute the necessary cuts to our budget in order to appropriately prioritize our staff as important members of our community and to enhance our educational experience. As it stands now, Harvard’s fiscal scheme is an embarrassment to all members of our community; one cannot help but blush at the recent report that the Cambridge City Council is trying to “shame Harvard into realizing how unnecessary and immoral low-wage worker cuts are in light of [the university’s] overall fiscal scheme” by giving Harvard a mini stimulus package. We should be concerned that the university sees our low-wage workers as “unnecessary” parts of our community in light of the continued financing of superfluous expenses such as Yardfest and the unchanged salaries of higher paid Harvard employees. Furthermore, we cannot accept the argument that these layoffs are necessary in order to maintain Harvard quality as an educational institution, for shielding students from the realities of a global issue can in no light be perceived as education. We call on Harvard to prioritize “Staff, Not Stuff,” as the Harvard Union of Clerical and Technical Workers (HUCTW) has advocated, and to make cuts more evenly across the Harvard community. In doing so, Harvard will show adequate respect to its workers and will offer a more effective education to the policymakers, economists, and academics who will be addressing this crisis and others in the future.

I remember February’s Knesset elections as a time of a held breath, a time when the mechanics of Israeli politics seemed to threaten the optimism of those, like me, who had been hopeful that real progress in the arena of Middle East peace was about to take place. Like so many other Americans, I saw Obama’s election as the inauguration of a worldwide wave of political successes for candidates oriented towards peace and negotiation.

The idea of holding a second set of elections due to a lack of ability to form a coalition government is inherently frightening to Americans. We cling to the view that once “the people have spoken,” their decision must not be adjusted – indeed, the political system should adjust to fit our needs and our desires. When I heard that factionalization might make a second round of elections necessary in Israel, I – and, I think, many Americans – balked. But even once it became clear that a new election would be held in Israel, I remained convinced that the America and the Middle East could together offer greater political opportunity and freedom to Arab Israelis and Palestinians.

Needless to say, the success of new Minister of Foreign Affairs Avigdor Lieberman and his Yisrael Beiteinu party did not fit with my vision of political change and cooperation. I was troubled by his party’s “no loyalty, no citizenship” platform. The phrase conjured up images of an arbitrary concept of “loyalty” – a term charged with implications of the suppression of dissenting voices – that Lieberman was attempting to translate into a fixed political framework. More worrisome still was Yisrael Beiteinu’s explicit plan to redraw the Green Line and strip many Arab-Israelis of their citizenship thereby creating a forced segregation between Israeli and Arab. Here was evidence that in Lieberman’s view, disloyal meant “Arab.” Lieberman’s labeling of Balad, Israel’s main Arab political party, as a “terrorist organization” was only the beginning of an effort to brand legitimate Arab political and social institutions as “terrorist.” Here was a platform that would spread the “Arab equals terrorist” ideology that many in the United States had been fighting so hard to combat since September 11. And here was a party that rejected wholesale the entire premise of idealistic Obamaist Americans like me: that cooperation can lead to peace by revealing every people as valuable, that the era of violence based on broad cultural generalizations was over. Instead of opening new paths to understanding, Lieberman was closing the already limited means to Israeli-Palestinian peace.

One reason Lieberman’s ascent to power is so troubling from an American perspective is his public demeanor. Lieberman’s comportment is entirely foreign to Americans, accustomed as we are to a political culture of politeness and diplomacy. Americans are no strangers to political scandals like the ongoing bribery investigation in which Lieberman is ensnared, and his assertions that the investigation is politically motivated are nothing new either. What is most disturbing is the coupling of this potential corruption with an anger and passion that is foreign to us. When Lieberman openly told Egyptian leader Mubarak to “go to hell,” he broke a cardinal rule of American politics.

If Lieberman’s only fault were behaving in a manner that conflicts with American political standards, however, he wouldn’t be dangerous. Even if he only dismissed United States intervention, we could (perhaps grudgingly) respect him as a proponent of Israeli autonomy. The problem is that Lieberman’s policies have grave ramifications, not just for the Middle East, but for the world. His rejection of American diplomatic involvement in the Arab-Israeli peace process is a rejection of a framework for peace that has been in existence since at least the Madrid Peace Conference of 1991. Granted, that framework has not yet provided a solution, but Lieberman proffers no alternative that represents any interests other than those of Israel. His announcement that the United States is not to make plans for peace efforts provides no outlet for Palestinian desires or concerns. Indeed, his only alternative to a totally unilateral agenda is an Israeli partnership with Russia. He apparently ignores the massive problems associated with making Russia Israel’s primary ally. In any event, this alliance seems designed for economic and military security, not diplomatic collaboration.

But it’s not just an American problem. The fact that Egypt’s chief negotiator visited Israel, but made no plans to meet with its Minister of Foreign Affairs, clearly indicates that Lieberman’s persona – let alone his policies – is a significant obstacle to the Middle East peace process. How can Israel move forward while Egypt’s Foreign Minister asserts that Lieberman “will not step on Egyptian soil”? This last statement has a slew of catastrophic implications. Unpopularity abroad is one thing, but an ability to neither access important channels of political discourse nor physically visit other nations is quite another.

When Lieberman directly engages with the peace process, the results are no less troubling. His shocking statement that Israel is not obligated to the Annapolis process is a refutation of the basic foundation of Arab-Israeli diplomacy. In making this statement, he sets off into the largely uncharted waters of official diplomatic efforts without American aid. It’s this kind of rashness that troubles me most. With Arab-Israeli relations strained disastrously by Gaza, the time for a two-state solution seems to be quickly running out, if it hasn’t already. At this crucial juncture, there is a great need for a foreign minister who can be decisive and careful. Lieberman is neither; he is in fact too temperamental to be either.

Thus, when he tries to back up his arguments with logic that ostensibly takes into account the interests of Arabs and Israelis, it’s hard to trust him. Some took his famous statement that concessions create more violence and actually hinder efforts at peace to be a signal that a cooperative peace really is his objective. But a proposal of negotiations in which neither party makes any concessions is entirely unrealistic. What it really translates to is at best a “separate but equal” doctrine and at worst an assertion of disproportionate Israeli power. And Lieberman approaches the whole process with a brutish intransigence that is downright scary.

It’s this intransigence that is the primary force in actually harming American interests. Too often, Americans think of the Middle East as a far-off region that has no effect on us beyond the implications of oil economics in the Gulf states. In fact, Lieberman’s insistence on calling negotiation for a two-state solution a “dead end” directly hinders American diplomatic efforts. It forces Washington to continuously reiterate its commitment to the two-state resolution in an attempt to defend its framework to both Yisrael-Beiteinu-supporting Israelis and disenchanted Arabs without giving America a chance to reconsider its own diplomatic position. Is a two-state solution still possible? Maybe not, and maybe Lieberman has a point there. However, his aggressive attitude and lack of feasible alternative, other than to exile Arab Israelis to a constructed ghetto state, gives Washington no opportunity to answer that question. Instead, America has to focus its energy on maintaining diplomatic strength in the context of the conflict rather than on examining fairer one-state alternatives.

So what can we do? First of all, we have to recognize which of our objections to Lieberman stem from uniquely American objections to his policies and persona and which come from the dangers he poses to Middle Eastern and international diplomacy. Second, our government has to take the time to consider and continually reevaluate its policy positions in the context of a constantly changing political scene in the Middle East. What concrete action we should take remains as unclear as ever. What is certain is that we must recognize the grave realities of Lieberman’s positions so that we can evaluate how best to act, because the time to act is not tomorrow, but now.

This past September, the class of 2012 stepped through the Harvard gates for the first time, feeling the university’s history weigh upon their every step. In their excitement, they could easily name over a dozen famous alumni to impress their friends, their relatives, and themselves- from historic figures including JFK, FDR, Robert Frost, Ted Kennedy, and Ralph Waldo Emerson to more recent graduates including Bill Gates, Al Gore, Conan O’Brien, Michael Crichton, Matt Damon, and even Mark Zuckerberg.

If you haven’t noticed a problem with this list, look again. Where are the women? The role of women in Harvard’s past is one aspect of Harvard’s history that goes continually and consistently unacknowledged. When asked for examples of famous alumna, several students realized that they could name only Natalie Portman. There is not a lack of accomplished female graduates, but their history has been overlooked from the beginning of Radcliffe College. Although Radcliffe women did not enjoy the same privileges as their male counterparts, they too pursued great careers and made stunning achievements. So where on the list is Gertrude Stein? Maxime Kumin? Benazir Bhutto?

Flashback again to Freshman Week. “You’re ugly!” “Die!” screamed enthused Crimson Key Society members during the annual Freshman Week screening of “Love Story.” “You fat b*****!” they yelled passionately at the film’s leading lady, the Radcliffe student Jennifer Cavalleri. While many freshmen were initially shocked and uncomfortable with the sexist humor, they quickly relaxed and joined in the laughter. In under ten minutes, the historical image of the Harvard woman was diminished, albeit comically, to that of a superficial, unattractive, and incompetent student. As funny and harmless as the Crimson Key’s original soundtrack may seem, it is disturbing that today’s satire was once, to a considerable extent, a reality.

Radcliffe College was founded in 1879 “to furnish instruction and the opportunities of collegiate life to women and to promote their higher education.” Named after Ann Radcliffe, an Englishwoman who created the first scholarship fund in 1643, Radcliffe was physically and figuratively separated from Harvard College for the first several decades of its existence. From 1879 to 1943 Harvard professors traveled to the Radcliffe Quad to replicate lectures they had already given to their male students. For the better part of the twentieth century, women studied at the Radcliffe Quad, an area intentionally built far away from the male students on the Harvard campus. In 1943, the Harvard Faculty of Arts and Sciences assumed responsibility for the education of all Radcliffe students, and in 1946 most courses became coeducational. However, the playing field remained far from level. It wasn’t until 1967 that women were allowed to enter Lamont Library because the administration was concerned that co-ed stacks would sidetrack male students from their studies. In 1972, women were finally welcomed into Harvard dorms, and three years later an equal-access admissions policy was implemented and the admissions offices were combined. Over a century after Radcliffe College’s creation, Harvard and Radcliffe united to create one formal institution on September 14, 1999.

Although the 1999 merger appeared to officially mark the end of institutional gender differences at Harvard, reality tells a vastly different story. While the changes of the second half of the twentieth century marked considerable advancement toward gender equality, they were not indicators of universal progress.

For example, Patricia Albjerg Graham became Harvard’s first female dean when she was appointed Dean of the Graduate School of Education. Because she was a woman, however, she was denied the privilege of entering the Faculty Club through the front door. This story cannot be relegated to the status of a distant memory; Graham was appointed in 1981.

In the twenty-eight years since, of course, times have changed.

The appointment of women to so many prominent posts in Harvard’s administration represents a marked shift, and one that has occurred mainly within the last five years. The 2007 appointment of Drew Faust as President was certainly a milestone for women at Harvard. Formerly Dean of the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, Faust oversaw the 2005 Harvard Task Forces on Women Faculty and on Women in Science and Engineering, and has worked to decrease the gender gap since. Evelynn Hammonds is Dean of Harvard College, Kathleen McCartney is Dean of the Graduate School of Education, and just this month, Cherry A. Murray was named Dean of the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences. Also, until her recent appointment as Solicitor General, Elena Kagan served as Dean of the Law School. In addition, every Vice Presidency at Harvard has been held or is currently held by a woman.

Women comprise 56% of the undergraduate student body, and are on track to receive over 60% of the university’s master degrees and almost half of the doctoral degrees.

The progress that has been made has been celebrated, and rightfully so. But while these achievements are commendable, they are not representative of larger-scale, university-wide progress. Despite the presence of women in several prominent roles, the average percentage of women across Harvard’s entire faculty is thirty-two percent. The gender gap is present at every level of the faculty. Forty-four percent of lecturers are women, the highest percentage of any group. The percentage diminishes at higher levels, and only twenty percent of tenured faculty university-wide are women.

Surprisingly, even these low percentages represent substantial recent increases. Twenty years ago, only seven percent of tenured faculty were women. While that percentage has increased since, its progress has not been smooth. The discrepancy between male and female professors did not diminish consistently over time, but rather escalated under the watch of President Lawrence H. Summers. In 2004, twenty-six female faculty members signed a letter informing Summers that since he took office in 2001, the number of tenure offers for female faculty decreased from thirty-seven percent to eleven percent. The letter claimed that only four of the thirty-six tenure offers made in 2003 were to women. Although those numbers are somewhat disputed, they nonetheless highlighted an urgent and critical need to make the hiring of female faculty a priority.

The current percentages of female faculty at Harvard are similar to those at its peer institutions. However, while Harvard falls comfortably in line with peer institutions, it is rarely a leader in the field. Only in the Business School and in FAS Social Sciences does Harvard place first among its peers with respect to tenure-track female faculty percentages.

Within Harvard, the gender gap varies widely across different schools (see chart). The gap is greatest in the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences and the Business School, where only eleven percent and twenty-two percent of faculty are female, respectively. FAS shares the university-wide average of thirty-two percent. Only in the School of Education do women comprise more than half of the faculty, where fifty-four percent are women. Interestingly, the School of Education’s student body is also nearly eighty percent women.

Of course, numbers alone cannot tell the whole story of women’s experience at Harvard. Not only are women vastly underrepresented as faculty, but as a group they are also less positive regarding their experience at the university. A 2008 “climate survey” by the Office for Faculty Development and Diversity revealed that among faculty respondents, “Women are less satisfied than men with Harvard and their individual schools.” The survey concluded, “Tenured and tenure-track women find their departments to be less of a good fit than their male counterparts do.” While these findings are extremely broad in scope, they are indicative to some extent of a pervasive sense of gender inequality among faculty.

At a recent event entitled “At the Cusp of Change: Women Leaders at Harvard,” sponsored by the Harvard College Women’s Center and the Office of Faculty Development and Diversity, the mood was upbeat yet serious. The speakers acknowledged that although women’s presence in the administration has improved significantly, individual appointments are not an indicator of systemic change. Drew Faust’s position as Harvard’s first female president is certainly an important step both practically and symbolically, but it neither negates nor excuses the fact that four out of every five tenured faculty are men.

While women’s sparse representation among tenured faculty is problematic in itself, the lack of public knowledge surrounding the issue is equally startling. During “At the Cusp of Change,” moderator Barbara Kellerman, a lecturer in public leadership at the Kennedy School, asked the audience what percentage of tenured faculty university-wide are women. No one knew the answer. If such knowledge is absent from a self-selected group of mostly of female students concerned with women’s leadership at Harvard, there is an obvious dearth of active campus-wide discussion on this issue.

As Audre Lorde writes in her essay collection Sister Outsider, “In a world of possibility for us all, our personal visions help lay the groundwork for political action.” Though women remain underrepresented at Harvard, the university has made significant improvements and has shown its potential to be a “world of possibility.” With the help of continued discussion and proactive efforts by both students and administrators, Harvard can continue to move toward becoming a truly equal environment for men and women.