The Wrong Approach

(The following is the opinion of a minority of the CRIMSON's Editorial Board, written by BOISFEUILLET JONES, JR., PAUL J. CORKERY and JAMES LARDNER.)

GROUPS do not achieve power merely by resolving to achieve power, but do so through the cumulative exercise of their influence on substantive issues. In most cases, students who accomplish reforms are those who articulate and organize such influence rather than those who plead for an expansion of student jurisdiction into areas several times removed from their immediate concerns. This is profoundly true at Harvard, which some-what paradoxically gives its students more freedom and less participation on policy-making committees than would be their lot at most public institutions. Harvard's governmental structure makes it pointless for students to seek empty representation on the Board of Overseers; instead they could better exert their energies towards matters on which their opinions really do make a difference.

Harvard operates on an intangible but effective system of separation of powers. Under Massachusetts law, sole authority over all University functions is invested in the Corporation, which also is the agency least likely to use its power.

As the University Catalogue states, "Considerable authority has by necessity been delegated by the Corporation to the various faculties, deans, and administrative boards of the schools and different departments." In financial matters, the Administration formulates budgets and legislation while the Corporation approves them; on educational policy; the Faculty and Administration interchange in the initiating and ratifying roles; on permanent academic appointments, the departments make recommendations and the Administration setup ad hoc committees to ratify the appointments. In all cases, a system of restraints exists between the Administration and Faculty oligarchies on matters of initiation and ratification. The Corporation, despite its mythical reputation as an inconsiderate stumbling tyrant, never takes the initiative even in financial matters, but merely acts on budgets in such a way as to maintain balances and avoid deficits.

Within this system of government, which has no pretensions of being democratic, the Overseers can and do serve only as a pressure group. They grant final approval on appointments and on major statutes, but these matters are actually decided at a Faculty level and receive only a rubber-stamp from the Overseers. The presence of Overseers merely forces University officers to justify their decision intelligently to laymen--distinguished and sympathetic laymen to be sure--but still laymen.

Student-Faculty representation on the Overseers could hardly lead to substantial debate or lend the body's collective prestige to broad issues. It is conceivable that a large number of student and Faculty members of the Board could increase Overseer responsibility for Faculty appointments, but, except in the case of choosing a new President or new dean of a faculty, this practice would mean an unhealthy reversal of the University's decentralization process. In fact, the Faculty's powers (and indirectly, the students' influence) may be reduced by an active Board.

There remains the question of why students bother to seek representation on the Overseers. If the ultimate goal is greater student power, there are more accessible and more important sources of authority in dean's committees and in departmental groups where influence my be pursued for definite goals. The argument that Harvard should be as democratic as possible in all its branches may sound pleasant, but in practice it is not possible. The proposed expansion of Overseer representation would require an act by the Massachusetts General Court, and it is inconceivable that any Massachusetts legislature would favor handing the review powers of Harvard's lay Board of Overseers over to a Board that includes interest groups from within the University. Under a Massachusetts Act of 1865, only degree holders outside the University government are eligible.

Nor do Harvard's officers accept the University as a democracy. And if they did, where would one stop? Are students and Faculty members more affected by Harvard investment and real estate practices than are Harvard employees or Cambridge residents? How is it best for all these groups to influence Harvard's decision-making process? Trying to change the Overseers from a body of outside advisors and donors into a forum of discussion will never accomplish much. By exerting pressure as a responsible interest group upon the actual decision-makers, students and others will achieve much more.

Students who seek to take part in policy decisions are in an interesting position. When they produce unreasonable demands or bad editorials, the University government ignores them. Whenever they produce good reports, people notice and include them in formal debates and informal discussions.