‘Leadership’ and Dirty Tricks at Harvard The student council’s extreme measures to stave off a ‘vote of no confidence.’ By Michael Cheng
“Leadership means more than simply climbing to the top and staying there. Leadership shouldn’t be about the title of your position; leadership should be about what you do for those you serve.”
Cambridge, Mass.
Harvard University claims to produce future leaders. So do other colleges. But constantly telling young people they’re leaders seems to bring out some of their worst qualities.
Harvard undergraduates routinely joke about their student government, the Undergraduate Council, which often appears to be a racket for politically ambitious students to accrue résumé lines and titles. The council has a record of waste and mismanagement; between spring 2017 and spring 2018 it lost more than $100,000 in student-activity funds—the groups that got the money didn’t return it as unspent funds or submit valid receipts showing where it went. Even so, the student activities fee that funds council activities increased by 167% in fall 2018.
During this year’s election, the council’s leaders faced attacks from multiple candidates, including me, who argued that Harvard’s student government was wasteful, ineffective and ought to be drastically reformed. In response, council leaders tried to cling to power.
Ten days before the election date, members of the council passed retroactive rules allowing the “independent” Election Commission to disqualify candidates for arbitrary reasons, which included “violations of the spirit of the election rules” and campaigning before an official start date that was established only in the new regulations.
Although I dodged disqualification, there were other tricks. When the election opened, the check box next to my name was obscured on the ballot, making it difficult for students to vote for me. When the Election Commission was asked about the error partway through the voting period, it said the problem had been corrected (it hadn’t) and that “all votes casted thus far” would be counted. The commission changed its mind only after a flood of messages urged it to restart the election with a fair ballot.
On Nov. 13, I was elected president of the Undergraduate Council. A Harvard Crimson editorial called the decision a “vote of no confidence” in the student government.
Instead of listening to constituents, the Undergraduate Council’s leaders immediately began doing everything they could to undermine the election results. Most notably, the Council’s lame-duck president and vice president submitted a bill to prevent students from amending their own student government’s constitution, and make meaningful constitutional changes impossible without a supermajority of student government leaders.
True, this is only student government, not Congress. What are the stakes? Vending machines? Free doughnuts?
Perhaps the willingness of some students to do whatever it takes for the right résumé lines relates to the unspoken assumption that all college students must be future leaders. College students rarely get the chance to think about whether that’s even something they want; they often aspire to leadership positions before thinking about what the responsibility really means.
Leadership means more than simply climbing to the top and staying there. Leadership shouldn’t be about the title of your position; leadership should be about what you do for those you serve.
Mr. Cheng is a senior at Harvard College studying history and mathematics.
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