The Essence of Derek Bok

My first night at Harvard, after meeting my roommates and drinking far too much beer, I threw a cardboard box, on which I had written "Derek Bok Sucks," out of my fourth floor Holworthy window. My roommates, who had heard only good things about our president, were shocked.

"What did you do that for?" they asked. "What's wrong with Derek Bok?"

I had no answers. My action was cheap, rude and unprovoked. I had no real criticism of Bok; it was merely a drunken attack upon authority. I resolved to give Bok a chance.

Eight semesters later my opinion hasn't changed much.

THE first time I ever saw Bok was during the spring of my freshperson year, shortly after the shanties had been constructed. He had emerged from his Massachusetts Hall bunker to join a dialogue on divestment organized by student activists. The pro-divestment position was clear: Harvard, as an institution that promotes democratic values, should not maintain investments that support anti-democratic regimes.

Bok's position was that Harvard could advance democratic reforms within South Africa by maintaining its investments there. While defending this policy, Bok said--in response to a question--that he probably would not have divested from Nazi Germany, either.

"Harvard & Hitler"--what a team. I was not impressed.

Last year, as part of a student, prounion delegation, I met with Bok in his office in an unsuccessful attempt to persuade him to end the administration's anti-union campaign. We knew we were meeting with one of the Big Boys of the Corporate World, so we tried to be polite and respectable. I removed my earring and even wore a jacket and tie. We sat up straight, avoided rhetoric, and kept our feet off the coffee table.

President Bok slouched in his chair, never asked our names, and rarely made eye contact with any of us, especially the women. He raised his voice, repeatedly interrupted us, and accused us of lying when we charged that the administration was trying to intimidate employees.

During the meeting, we presented Bok with a petition signed by over 3000 students urging the University to remain neutral during the union election. We told Bok that we understood the administration was within its legal rights to wage an anti-union campaign; we were asking the administration to hold itself to a higher standard. He quickly and unapologetically confirmed what we had feared--that despite what we are taught, moral pressure has no place in the grown-up world of university politics.

WHAT disturbs me most about Bok is not that he dosen't toe the liberal line. It is that he cultivates the image of being a liberal when he really isn't.

When I would complain to friends about the administration, they would tell me that I should be thankful. It could be much worse, they said, to be stuck with the likes of Boston University's John Silber.

But Bok is a far more disturbing figure than Silber. No one is misled by Silber's politics; he is clearly a conservative autocrat. Unlike Bok, Silber is a wolf in wolf's clothing.

Yet Bok's style is far more insidious than Silber's Despite his policies, he is still associated with liberalism, with democratic values, and with compassion--an image he shrewdly manages to preserve at the expense of the reputations of his underlings. When labor law scholar Bok tries to bust a union, he sits quietly in his office, while Associate Vice President for Human Resources Ann Taylor is sent to the front lines to use scare tactics and talk worse-case scenarios.

FOR four years, Derek Bok has been an apt symbol for Harvard University: aloof, amoral, hypocritical and unconcerned with undergraduates. As I graduate, Bok is a far more haunting, personal symbol.

When Bok was appointed president 18 years ago, he was a great liberal reformer, poised to restore order and democracy to the community after the turbulent years of Nathan M. Pusey '28. Today, he is the liberal-turned-corporate agent. The tired, burnt-out reformer. The idealist as guardian of an amoral status quo.

For the past few weeks, I have sat in the bars, restaurants and courtyards of Harvard Square, talking with friends about to graduate. We all want to change the world. We are all energized by dreams we feel we are about to grasp.

Bok is a symbol of how quickly those dreams are lost. He reveals how fleeting is our energy, our optimism and our commitment to our beliefs. He shows us how quietly, how subtly we become what we oppose.