Rights and Responsibilities Committee Initiates New Discipline Procedure

The new "Committee on Rights and Responsibilities" met yesterday and set up some of the procedures it will use to discipline students involved in Thursday's invasion of the Center for International Affairs.

The committee- which has been authorized by the Corporation and the Overseers to handle student discipline in cases like this- said it is ready to accept complaints against students involved in the affair.

The committee also voted unanimously to "cooperate fully with the appropriate civil authorities" in any cases of physical assault. The practical effect of the vote was to change the policy of the Dean's office, which had been urging those assaulted Thursday not to go to the police until the committee had a chance to meet.

Officials on Dean May's staff said that his office was "no longer discouraging" victims of the incident from going to the police. But as late as yesterday evening. Cambridge detectives said that they had no formal complaints on file.

Besides saying that it would accept complaints from any member of the University, the committee offered no further details on the discipline procedure. The committee's chairman, James Q. Wilson. professor of Government, said that some tentative procedures had been suggested. but that the committee was looking for further legal advice before deciding on a system.

The new procedures probably will be considerably simpler than the many-stage hearing process used for last April's demonstrators. Wilson said that there will be "much less emphasis on legal formalities."

But since the new committee will discipline students and not just investigate the facts, it will insist that all complaints come in writing.

Although no complaints have yet come to the committee, Dean May's office is working with the staff of the Center to identify students and help prepare complaints. Wilson also visited the Center yesterday to tell people there about the complaint procedure.

Dean Ford said last night that seven of those who entered the building have been identified, and that an unspecified number of them are Harvard students.

While waiting to get its first complaints. the committee has temporarily suspended action. Wilson said it will probably meet again on Monday or Tuesday.

The committee-originally appointed as a successor to the Committee of Fifteen-has never been formally approved by the Faculty. A vote on the committee will come at the Faculty's first meeting of the year next Tuesday.

The nine-member committee is composed of three Faculty members from the Committee of Fifteen (Wilson; Alan Heimert 49, Master of Eliot House; and Donald G. Anderson. assistant professor of Applied Mathematics): three other Faculty and Administrative Board members (Joel Porte, Allston Burr Senior Tutor in Quincy House; Kenneth M. Deitch 60, assistant professor of Economics; and James S. Dusenberry. professor of Economics; and three students. all Harvard undergraduates (Kirby Wilcox 70; Hai H. Doan 70; Richard W. Hausler 72).