Harvard's trials and tribulations

WHEN she applied for a place at Harvard last year, 19-year-old Gina Grant seemed almost too good to be true: she was captain of her school tennis team, a cheerleader, popular with contemporaries and exceptionally bright with an unblemished academic record. An orphan, she had overcome a grim background in South Carolina and seemed set for a stellar academic career.

She even spent her spare time teaching biology to underprivileged children in the neighbourhood where she lived with an uncle and aunt. Harvard barely hesitated, and awarded her early admission to the university, a mark of distinction offered to only a handful of candidates.

Then, earlier this month, the university received an anonymous package containing faded newspaper clippings dating back to 1990, which painted a very different picture. The cuttings told how, at 14, Ms Grant had bludgeoned her alcoholic and abusive mother to death with a candlestick.

Convicted of voluntary manslaughter, she spent six months in a South Carolina juvenile detention centre before being released on parole to re-invent her life as a straight-A student.

Harvard promptly rescinded its offer of a place, setting off a storm of debate over questions of privacy, clemency and redemption and leaving the Ivy League university embroiled in one of the most embarrassing scandals in its 359-year history.

Last week, Harvard students held protest rallies on campus claiming that Ms Grant had paid her dues to society, had proved her intellectual worth and should now be admitted. One Harvard alumnus has stated he will no longer make donations to the university; others have written to newspapers roundly condemning the university's action. A New York Times editorial, accusing the university of acting with 'unseemly haste', called on Neil Rudenstine, the Harvard president, to 'order a full review and reconsideration' of Ms Grant's application.

'Harvard has an obligation to behave in an educated way,' the newspaper opined. 'In the matter of Ms Grant, it has not.' Harvard has so far refused to comment on or change its decision, and other universities, including Columbia and South Carolina, have capitalised on the furore by offering to consider an application from Ms Grant. 'If every other university in the world should turn her down, that means we sentence her to a life without education,' John Silber, Boston University's president, declared on television.