So Harvard students are like, totally standing up to Dean Pilbeam and his anti-drinking crusade! Just because some silly administrator wants to get rid of university funding for undergraduate parties doesn't mean the students have to take it! Somehow, someone convinced these kids that fighting Pilbeam is fighting fascism at home. This, friends, is the battle of our time: if Harvard students don't receive $1700 a week to throw parties, the terrorists / Islamofascists / Nazis / whatever win.

According to the Crimson, the Undergraduate Council isn't going down without a fight.  Despite Pilbeam's harshly-worded letter, the council voted to allocate $17,000 for 10 weeks of party grants. What's more, the President of the UC sent a letter to Pillbeam almost Churchillian its eloquence/self-importance. His words will make you want to cry, if only at the heartbreaking solipsism of the average Harvard student:

I can only believe that despite the wealth of power the administration retains, despite its power to harass, to withhold, to prosecute and to destroy, it still stands in awe of reason… Perhaps, it fears, despite its liberal use of fear-mongering and its casual ignorance of fact, the world will peel back the curtain and discover the emptiness that lies behind. I have no doubt that the administration will go to any length, will press any advantage, and will commit any crime to assert its domination over the Council, as it has already committed the worst crime of all: it has rejected truth in claiming to protect it…

The Council may spend its funds as it wishes, but it must not spend money on certain initiatives. Anyone may say whatever he or she wants, but must do so according to pre-established rules of propriety and etiquette. The absurd has truly made its home in the seat of rationality. ??As the contradictions in our society have become more obvious, the number of individuals who have joined our ranks continues to grow. Never before have so many joined our mailing list. Never before have so many written letters to Dean Pilbeam, called Dean Kidd, and demanded that they account for their actions. And never before have we seen such a brilliant outpouring of political art, ranging from the humorous to the cynical to the hopeful."

Undergraduate Council, this is truly your finest hour.

After the jump: the letter in full.
Dear Mr. President,

As you are aware, this Council passed last semester an amendment to the Bylaws which requires me to regularly report on the state of our advocacy efforts. I am pleased to satisfy this requirement through this letter.

To date, neither the Student Affairs Committee nor the Council plenum has passed any advocacy-related legislation in the instant session. I expect that this will change once the Committee has finished appointing students to the student-faculty committees. In fact, I will move that the Council confirm our selections to several committees at this evening's meeting. Progress is slow, but I know that the quality of our appointees directly correlates to the care with which we select them, and the Committee has already devoted countless hours to this thankless task. I thank the Committee.

Despite the lack of advocacy-specific legislation on which to report, I must share a few thoughts on our ongoing struggle to retain the party fund program. One of the strangest elements of the past few days has been the insistence with which our colleagues in the administration have requested to meet with us. In normal times it might take weeks to find a time that works, but recently we've been invited to meet with less than twelve hours notice. Peculiarly, the very act of unilateral decision-making has produced in the administration a need to seek our validation.

I can only believe that despite the wealth of power the administration retains, despite its power to harass, to withhold, to prosecute and to destroy, it still stands in awe of reason. Perhaps, it fears, despite its liberal use of fear-mongering and its casual ignorance of fact, the world will peel back the curtain and discover the emptiness that lies behind. I have no doubt that the administration will go to any length, will press any advantage, and will commit any crime to assert its domination over the Council, as it has already committed the worst crime of all: it has rejected truth in claiming to protect it. First, however, the administration will see if it can convince this Council to join in its sacrilege.

The Council is not an unreasonable body. Our membership - like that of the Faculty - is composed of individuals who are here primarily to learn. I suspect that most of us would much prefer to spend this evening struggling through Weber than deliberating over the state of the University. I would go so far as to say that most probably find it quite silly that we spend so much time and effort arguing about student group taxes, calendar reforms and party funds. Each of us shares this imperative to forget about these trifles and return to our studies. It is as natural as our being.

But it is no accident that we find ourselves in Council each Sunday evening. For despite our efforts to disengage, we are too easily distracted. The slightest whiff of incompetence, the first blossom of injustice drives us back to the barricades. We do not argue for argument's sake, nor do we meet to fill up conference rooms. We just find ourselves unable to fully understand our studies if we cannot make some sense of the forces controlling our world.

Up to now our number has been small; probably no larger than 50 out of a population of several thousand. This week, however, the contradictions that so distract us have been thrown into relief. The Council is not a part of the University, but it must heed to its decrees. The Council may spend its funds as it wishes, but it must not spend money on certain initiatives. Anyone may say whatever he or she wants, but must do so according to pre-established rules of propriety and etiquette. The absurd has truly made its home in the seat of rationality.

As the contradictions in our society have become more obvious, the number of individuals who have joined our ranks continues to grow. Never before have so many joined our mailing list. Never before have so many written letters to Dean Pilbeam, called Dean Kidd, and demanded that they account for their actions. And never before have we seen such a brilliant outpouring of political art, ranging from the humorous to the cynical to the hopeful.

The administration has made a fatal error. In the past, we have been able to believe that the frequent contradictions in our community were unfortunate, but unavoidable. I still believe this to be true, in general. But now we see that the administration is not a neutral party in the battle against illogic and irrationality. When the administration brazenly ignored the decisions of this Faculty and advanced vacuous and ever-shifting arguments to explain its behavior, it betrayed that it is not the benevolent despot it would have us believe.

We have been so focused on the smaller contradictions in our community that we have ignored the most fundamental of them all: that a community which values ideas through discussion can consent to be governed in secret and without restraint. If alchemy is the symbol of the science this community most abhors, than autocracy is the style of government most inconsistent with its principles. I do not believe that we can change the governance of this community overnight, nor would I want to. But I do believe that the first step towards returning our community to its first principles is to resist efforts to subordinate our representative institutions to the administrative autocracy. We fight to preserve the party fund program not just because it is a safe and effective use of our wealth, but because it is one of the few decisions this community has made separate from the corrupting influence of autocratic power.

We have a long semester of advocacy ahead of us, and I look forward to the triumph of rational and principled suggestions for the improvement of our community. But based just on this first week, I have never been so proud to say that I serve at the pleasure of the Student Affairs Committee of the Undergraduate Council.

Respectfully submitted,
-Mike