Word: chung
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...second major error lies in the notion that PUCC is a band of ideologues bent on dividing the council and the student body. Chung asserts that PUCC's openly progressive bent "smacks of consensus destruction...and enrages legitimate conservative[s]." Of course, in order for "consensus destruction" to take place, a consensus must first exist; Mr. Chung has already admitted that no such consensus exists around the council. More importantly, PUCC seeks to create a legitimating consensus in campus politics--not by declaring a moral mandate for progressive concerns, but by creating an articulate dialogue around vital and potentially divisive...
PUCC agrees with Harvard's administration, with virtually every critic of the Undergraduate Council, and, to judge by his article, with Mr. Chung that such a legitimating consensus cannot occur within or around a council that is 80 percent male and chiefly white. So long as the council resembles a less-than-exclusive final club, it will remain a feeble presence on campus. For this reason, PUCC's coalition includes as equal partners leadership representatives and members of the Black Students Association (BSA), the South Asian Association, the Asian American Association (AAA), and the Bisexual Gay and Lesbian Students Association...
...Crimson's stances toward the Progressive Undergraduate Council Coalition, expressed in Patrick Chung's column ("Sloppy Slap Shot," Opinion, September 23) and a staff editorial on September 25, invariably start with a firm reminder of why PUCC's reformist project is necessary. Chung acknowledges that the Undergraduate Council, the only body able in theory to speak on behalf of all the members of the College, "is just another extra-curricular activity" and "suffers from a lack of legitimacy." He also allows that the council's illegitimacy stems in part from the fact that "[it] is a bastion of white males...
Here, Mr. Chung shifts suddenly into an attack on PUCC's membership, motivation and intent. He paints the organization as a cabal of self-righteous radicals determined to impose their agenda on the campus; to complete the model, he suggests that PUCC is driven by a hubristic, "delusional" vision of the council's activist potential. In the same vein, The Crimson's editorial staff suggests that a PUCC victory would mean the politicization of the U.C. grants process, a potential disaster for conservative student groups. If any of this were true, students would have good reason for alarm. Thankfully, however...
...Chung's fear that PUCC will allenate "legitimate conservatives," we can only point out that our candidates include socially conservative final club members and a former Salient editor. We are glad to put our commitment to dialogue and coalition into practice at any time and with anybody, and look forward to further, fruitful conversation with campus conservatives, whose legitimacy we (unlike Mr. Chung) do not presume to judge...