The Council

To the Editors of The Crimson:

In his February 29 editorial "An Abdication of Council-ar Authority" Mitchell A. Orenstein strongly suggests that as an elected official I was wrong to seek to "represent the students in the final clubs as much as those who aren't" when the council discussed an anti-final clubs resolution on Sunday night. Simply unable to understand why I would be willing to listen to the viewpoints presented by such "a small minority of the College population," Orentein reminds me that, "Supposedly, in a democracy, the majority rules."

Yet, I must wonder how Mr. Orenstein would have reacted had my statement been that I would seek to "represent the Black students on campus as much as those who are white," or "represent the female students on campus as much as those who are male." Would he still have assailed me as presenting "one brilliant formulation of minority rule?" Would he still have called me an "impotent" legislator?

I would suggest to Mr. Orenstein that I do not truly have a "counting problem," unless such a problem be found in the fact that when I look at my constituents, I count them as equal human beings. Whether they be Black or white, male or female, final club members or not, matters little to me when seeking to represent their views on the council floor. And even though Mr. Orenstein seemingly does not wish for me to do so, I will continually seek to represent all students as equal members of this community. If my failure to prejudge, discriminate, and repress the views and the wishes of those in minority groups is in some way offensive to him, I offer no apology.

I might also suggest that perhaps Mr. Orenstein, rather than myself, is the one who is in need of "a course in representative democracy." In such a course he might someday stumble across Alexis de Tocqueville's Democracy in America and read the chapter entitled "What Tempers the Tyranny of the Majority of the United States." Should Mr. Orenstein attend a class to discuss this reading, he may begin to understand that one of the most immoral mistakes a legislator can ever make is to yield to popular passions on issues of prejudice or discrimination. To do so according to Tocqueville would be to promote one of the greatest "vices inherent to popular government."

Certainly, Mr. Orenstein would never argue that the wishes of the Nazi majority should have prevailed in World War II Germany. And fortunately, unlike in such a fascist state, in this nation and this University a member of any minority group has a respected human and legal right to participate and be considered as an equal member of an informed debate. It is this commitment to truly equal representation which my statement regarding the final clubs clearly reflects, and which I am quite proud to uphold and defend as the vice chairperson of the Undergraduate Council. I find it truly difficult to understand why such a thought is so upsetting to Mr. Orenstein. Jeffrey A. Cooper '90,   Undergraduate Council Vice Chairman