The Ethnic Studies fast was a wonderful example of self-denial for the sake of a lost cause. While one cannot fail to be impressed at the sturdy determination of the activist students who gave up their inedible Union dinner to promote the cause of curricular diversity, it seems that the University paid remarkably little attention to these students' protests. Vast numbers of undergraduates were fortunate enough to have received a flier dropped at their doors militantly proclaiming that students at Harvard must show solidarity with their peers at Princeton and Northwestern. Nevertheless, I, along with all but a handful of my fellow students, decided that the benefits of creating an ethnic studies department at Harvard failed to outweigh the cost of an unsatisfied appetite. I also lacked suitable attire for the protest, since nowhere in my wardrobe could I find the appropriate all-black clothes and white armband.
The commendable spirit of the protesters provided a stark contrast to the unprecedented degree of student apathy for a cause as liberal and as trendy as ethnic studies. In spite of the huge amounts of paper wasted on the carpet-bomb style publicity tactics of the protesters, the Ethnic Studies movement has always generated very little interest from the student body. Harvard would, I am sure, meet some of the demands of this movement if it weren't such a marginal group on campus. However, the posturing of such a tiny minority of students, who operate without any clear sign of support from their peers, will remain yet another futile gesture of protest. When Harvard students protested the Bell Curve, the book hit the bestseller lists. When Harvard students protested the Contract with America, the House of Representatives passed nine of the ten proposals. Now Harvard students are again protesting the lack of Ethnic Studies; I hope the protesters don't hold their breath. (Édouard Métrailler)
In a recent 6-3 decision last week on the case Plaut v. Spendthrift Farm, the Supreme Court struck down a law passed by Congress in 1991 to revive suits closed by the Court itself. According to reporter Linda Greenhouse of The New York Times, Justice Antonin Scalia, writing for the majority, "adopted a categorical, almost talismanic view of the separation of powers." Justice Scalia invoked John Marshall's Marbury v. Madison decision that it was the "province and duty" of the Federal courts "to say what the law is." Although the immediate impact of the ruling which actually dealt with securities fraud suits will be relatively minimal, it reinforces the boundaries set up as "structural safeguards" by the Founding Fathers, according to Scalia. Greenhouse reminds us that the separation of powers involves questions of independent counsels to investigate executive branch officials, the ability of Congress to block executive action through legislative veto, automatic deficit-reduction measures and Congressional efforts to curb the Presidential power to send troops into combat.
Neither of Clinton's Supreme Court appointees joined the majority, yet another reminder of the delicate balance of powers which must be preserved. All those who do not subscribe to a strict interpretation, therefore, do more than loosely interpret, they undermine. I won't argue Constitutional minutiae - mostly because I'm not really qualified to do so. It seems, anyhow, that one can find whatever one wants in between the lines. The issue, therefore, seems to be exactly that - if you can find anything, you are safe only if you look for nothing. The Constitution says what it means. Follow it, and things will work out. If you must, amend it according to its own rules. Otherwise, what's to stop the President from arresting the Court? Or vice versa? Madison & Co. crafted such an enlightened government that unbalanced weight will just tip the scales and mess everything up. In his opinion, Justice Scalia quoted the poetry of Robert Frost: "Good fences make good neighbors." Since mankind really has proven itself to be less than angelic, it seems that we must deal with this reality, and allow the Constitution to do its job protecting us all. Congress and the Executive seem to be getting a little greedy these days. At least we can still count on the robed ones. (Lisa Pearlman)
The presidential election is a year and a half away, and already nine Republicans have declared their candidacies or will shortly do so. And all of them will probably avoid like the plague the microphone at Harvard's Institute of Politics, which has recently been occupied mostly by the likes of Barbra Streisand and Jesse Jackson. All of them, that is, except Arlen Specter, who braved the Kennedy School on April 28.
Specter, the senior U.S. Senator from Pennsylvania, is doing his best to run a candidacy as close as possible to the political center. He maintains that he's a strict fiscal conservative but a social moderate; he has adopted Barry Goldwater's desire to get government "off our backs, out of our pocketbooks and out of our bedrooms." He opposes gun control and supports a 20% flat tax on income. These libertarian positions by themselves don't set him apart from the better-funded and better-known candidates. But Specter has gone further by strongly opposing school prayer and taking on the most divisive issue of all - abortion.
Specter's stand on abortion has brought him a considerable amount of attention. Though he has declared on the floor of the Senate that he is personally opposed to abortion, he says that he supports a woman's right to choose because "it is the law of the land," and "the Supreme Court has spoken." During the question-and-answer period after his speech, most of the questioners interrogated him about abortion, and protesters unfurled a banner reading "America Votes Pro-Life."
Pro-life and pro-choice Republicans can both agree that it takes courage for Specter to stand on principle in the face of such vocal opposition from religious conservatives. But they can agree on little else when it comes to abortion, and the question remains whether Specter has taken such a vehement stance simply to attract attention. During his speech, he was more equivocal on most other issues, ranging from expanding law enforcement's powers to the influence of conservative radio talk show hosts to his questioning of Anita Hill. Making his opposition to part of the religious right's social conservatism the centerpiece of his campaign, rather than his foreign policy experience, tough-on-crime stance, or flat tax proposal, may set him apart from the other candidates, but it may also do more harm than good if it divides the GOP. And such a split could mean the reelection of what Specter himself has called "the incompetent Left." (William Jay)
Yale is having a bad season. Not long after our illustrious neighbor in New Haven made the headlines for having to return a twenty million dollar grant, they are in the news again, this time thanks to an over-ambitious ex-student, Lon Grammer. Mr. Grammer, who transferred to Yale in 1993, was to graduate this semester with a degree in political science. Unfortunately for him, the diligent people at Yale's admissions office decided to expel him upon discovering that his application was almost totally fabricated.
Amazingly, it took Yale two years to unearth Grammer's charade. During that time he played rugby, joined a fraternity, and was able to maintain a C average. Grammer's grades at his previous school, Cuesta Community College, were also C's. One would almost think there was no difference between the venerable Yale and a junior college.
But we shouldn't be surprised at Mr. Grammer's performance. His application showed his ingenuity and talent, and his refusal to uphold the oppressive (undoubtedly patriarchal) hegemony of truth over fiction should have impressed Yale's left-wing faculty. Grammer's achievements included claiming a B average at Yale, inflating his Cuesta College GPA from 2.077 to 3.91, falsifying his high school transcript, and providing two letters of recommendation from nonexistent teachers. Yale also charges him with submitting a forged recommendation from a dean, and perhaps most distressing, accepting over $61,000 in loans and scholarships to which he was not entitled.
Still, Yale's administrators must be asking themselves why it took them two years to discover Grammer's fraud. In the end it was Grammer who did himself in, after apparently bragging to a roommate that he had gotten into Yale with faked documents. The roommate told authorities and the holes in Grammer's top-notch record slowly came to light. If it wasn't for his own loose lips though, Yale might never have discovered the impostor in their midst.
Similar cases of universities not having accurate or complete information about their applicants (Gina Grant ring a bell?) shows that this isn't a problem for Yale only. The apparatus that schools use to gather information on prospective students is just not built to handle fraud like Mr. Grammer's or omission such as Ms. Grant's.
The threat that Mr. Grammer poses is clear cut. If all it takes is a little fibbing to catapult an academic mediocrity into the Ivies, then the work and honest effort that the rest of us put in is cheapened. If that mediocrity performs just as well at Yale as at an institution with far lower standards of admission, then maybe it's time we sobered up and re-examined what, if anything, separates us from the students at all those "lesser" schools.
Then again, ... maybe it's just Yale. (James Basili)