Faculty Shelves Draft Resolution After Debating for Hour and Half

The Faculty conducted a rigorous but relaxed debate on the draft yesterday for more than an hour and a half. It then concluded nearly a month of controversy by voting 117-71 to "post-pone indefinitely" a resolution condemning student deferments.

John Rawls, professor of Philosophy and sponsor of the resolution, said last night he was disappointed at its defeat, but entirely satisfied that the Faculty had finally had a chance to debate the question of deferments. The matter is "settled" and he does not intend to raise it again before the Faculty.

A similar anti-deferment resolution was presented to the Faculty at its December meeting, but on a 141-88 vote it was tabled immediately with virtually no discussion. Yesterday's debate removed some of the resentment left by December's action; most Faculty members agreed that the new discussion had been carried on with-out rancour and in the words of one, "everyone made an effort to be conciliatory."

The draft question consumed almost the entire meeting. Rawls began by introducing the resolution and arguing that it was an appropriate matter for the Faculty as a whole to take a stand on. But he emphasized that it was not necessary to foreclose debate, as was done last month, to resolve this question. By accepting a motion to "postpone indefinitely," Rawls suggested, the Faculty could first discuss the issues and then decide on appropriateness. His suggestion was followed.

During the debate, a long list of objections to the resolution was raised. Don K. Price, Dean of the Kennedy School of Government, warned that the resolution, even if accepted only as a means of opposing student deferments, might well be interpreted in the "popular press" as an attack on the war in Vietnam. "What a professor carefully writes in a resolution," Price said last night, "doesn't always come out in the headlines," and he didn't think the Faculty--as a whole--would want to take a position on the war.

Echoing this argument, David Riesman, Henry Ford II Professor of Social Sciences, thought the resolution would inevitably become tied to Vietnam. "It's a poor way of fighting the war--a war to which I am also opposed," he said after the meeting.

Harrison C. White, associate professor of Sociology, contended that Faculty members did not have enough information to deal effectively with the deferment question. They did not have detailed information about student opinion on deferments, he said, nor did they possess enough knowledge about the consequences of eliminating 2-S.

Eliminating College Incentive

It is possible, he suggested, that ending 2-S could seriously change the lives of many average students by eliminating their incentive to go to college. Two years in the army after high school might cause them to "lose the motivation" to continue their schooling, though most students who plan to go to schools like Harvard would be relatively unaffected. "They're middle class and committed--they know what they're doing," he said.

"I don't know if this [argument] is true," White said last night, "but this illustrates the complexities of discussing the general 2-S system." For this reason, White introduced the motion to "post-pone indefinitely" the anti-deferment resolution.

Rogers Albritton, professor of Philosophy, argued against this point. "We do not need to know the ultimate effect on American society of interrupting even a large number of college careers," he said last night.

"Military conscription is an interference with our basic liberties so extreme that only exceedingly strong reasons can justify discriminating between one eligible man and another in the distribution of this burden. No such justification can be found for the present deferment (and often, ultimate exemption) of col- lege students and teachers. It requires no special expertise to see that speculative reasons of social benefit are not strong enough."

Though both Albritton and Rawls said they saw the issue in these ethical terms, they did have figures to substantiate their argument -- that 2-S discriminates against non-college students. Rawls conceeded last night that he had made an error in not introducing the statistics into the debate. Culled from testimony before a Congressional subcommittee, the figures showed the following: In the summer of 1964, of men aged 26, only 40 per cent who had completed college had served in the military in contrast to 57 per cent for high school graduates and more than 60 per cent for those who had dropped out of college. (However, only 50 per cent of the men not reaching high school had served.)

Protesting Privilege

One argument advanced against the anti-deferment resolution is that universities are just like any other interest group, and that they should not voluntarily seek to surrender privileges they have won -- in this case, the deferment.

Samuel S. Bowles, assistant professor of Economics, attacked this position as "cynical."

"I don't think that universities should try to get as much as they can." "Ultimately," he continued, 'this would reflect on colleges in a political way. We can't afford to let universities become a harbour of privilege," because they are too dependent for financial support and their academic independence on society.

Monro Supports Faculty Action

The resolution's supporters won at least one important convert yesterday. Dean Monro said he now agrees with the Rawls position that the Faculty -- as a collective body -- ought to take a position on deferments. Monro has long believed that the deferment was unfair, but before yesterday he thought that opposition to it should be expressed only by individuals or unofficial groups of Faculty members.

Monro praised Rawl's motion for not asking the University to stop its policy of computing class ranks. Monro has not changed his previous position on this policy -- that Harvard has an obligation to supply the rankings as long as deferments exist and local draft boards ask for them.

Not everyone at yesterday's meeting thought that the anti-deferment resolution was strong enough. Hilary W. Putnam, professor of Philosophy, told the Faculty he would have preferred a motion refusing to supply class rankings, as a way of dissociating Harvard from the war in Vietnam. "For me," he explained last night, "the injustice of the war far outweighs this or that inequity in the Selective Service System. And the Selective Service System the University community a part of the war."

Other speakers at the meeting included Oscar Handlin, Charles Warren Professor of American History. It was Handlin, who introduced the motion to table the anti-deferment resolution in December; he did not do the same thing at this meeting