Looking Beyond Each Other
Reconciliation at Harvard
Jennifer Parker
April 1, 1997
Veritas … Harvard University's one-word motto, students soon learn, means, simply, "truth." It has represented the culmination of all the intellectual, philosophical, and spiritual journeys of generations of scholars since the college's founding in 1636. Begun as a training ground for Puritan ministers, the school has broadened its curriculum and grown over some 360 years into one of America's premier institutions of higher learning, a place where young would-be movers and shakers of science, society, education, public policy, and government are groomed for leadership. Students from many races and ethnic backgrounds now attend Harvard. But as the university has grown more and more multicultural, the age-old question, what is truth, has faced whole new sets of challenges. Some ethnic groups now argue they should be allowed ethnocentric dorms, dedicated, for example, to Asian-American students only. And, of course, the issue of black and white tensions is omnipresent. Take my own Harvard years for an example. Not that long ago I walked with several other African-American students from the Radcliffe Quadrangle to Harvard Square, talking all the way about the latest campus scandal. A young white woman had hung a Confederate flag over the sill of her dormitory window as "an expression of pride in her Southern heritage." A black woman whom we all knew had complained in outrage to an unresponsive university administration. In retaliation, our friend hung a German swastika from her bedroom window for all the campus to see. Within the hour erupted all the pent-up racial and ethnic hostility and all the muted rage and undercurrents of prejudice. A campus that was already somewhat self-segregated polarized even further; the tension ...
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