A Day in the Life of the Rights Committee

The Committee on Rights and Responsibilities reluctantly conceded yesterday that a student appearing before a fact-finding committee has the right to select as his "advisor" a member of the press.

In the belief that formal disciplinary hearings should not be conducted in private and behind locked doors-as long as the accused student wants his hearing to be public-I arranged with Barry Margolin '70, a white student charged with shouting at Dean May during the OBU demonstration on December 11, to attend yesterday's hearing as his "advisor."

The Committee's rules permit each student facing charges to bring one "student or academic advisor." My function as an advisor was entirely limited to reporting; as I told the three-man fact-finding panel, I came as an advisor because "it was the only way I could get into the meeting." Previous hearings have been closed to press and public.

Three Locked Doors

The hearing room was on the tenth floor of Holyoke Center. Margolin and I had to pass through three locked doors, guarded by University police. Wooden bars have been placed over the glass doors.

In the hallway outside the hearing room, we waited with Dean May and Samuel R. Williamson Jr., Allston Burr Senior Tutor in Kirkland House, Dean Sheppard '71-charged with the same offense as Margolin-and Michael J. Bishop '70, another CRIMSON reporter who planned to serve as Sheppard's "advisor" in order to report what went on.

When the panel called us into the hearing room, I stated that I was from the CRIMSON and intended to write a story about the hearing.

"If you're his advisor, you cannot be a reporter," said James Q. Wilson, professor of Government and chairman of the Committee. "The reason the hearing is closed is both to protect the student's private and personal relations to the University and to preserve order," Wilson said.

NEWS FEATURE

Margolin denounced a hearing closed to the press as "a Star Chamber proceeding. I will not participate in a hearing to which there is no public access," he said. "An attempt to prove the case against me is possible only in secret."

Richard W. Hausler '72, the only student member of the fact-finding panel, spoke against ordering me from the hearing. "It would be difficult to exclude a person who said he was an advisor. It's impossible to say that once you attend you may not say what happened," he said.

Margolin charged that the hearings were kept closed to protect administrators. Wilson denied the charge. If the hearings could be opened on a student's request, he said, a student might find himself "under psychological duress" from other students to open his own hearing.

Finally, Wilson, Hausler, and the other panel member-Joel M. Porte, Allston Burr Senior Tutor in Quincy House-decided to call the entire nine man committee together in closed session to decide how to interpret their rules.

May, Williamson, Margolin, and I were asked to leave the room. The Committee met for about 15 minutes. They then called us back, and Wilson said I would be allowed to stay. But if an article on the hearings were published, he said, "the Committee reserves the right, on its initiative, to publish a full transcript."

The Committee's tape recorder, not used in ordinary cases, was turned on. The Committee could publish the transcript if I wrote anything about the hearing, but Wilson said that Margolin would have a chance to gain access to a transcript only by applying to the Committee.

Wrestling Practice

Sheppard waited outside with Bishop through all of this and the hour-long hearing which followed. He was finally told he could go to lunch while a hearing was in progress for Richard E. Hyland '69-4, but he returned to find Hyland's hearing still in progress. The committee interrupted Hy-land's hearing so that Sheppard would not miss wrestling practice.

But Sheppard's hearing was never held. Wilson asked Bishop at the beginning what his function was Bishop replied that he was "advising" Sheppard by reporting for the CRIMSON. Wilson said, "We allow advisers to come but not reporters."

Before the issue was settled, committee members began discussing whether they would allow Sheppard to use a tape recorder he had brought with him.

Porte said, "I, for example, would not authorize a tape recording to be used publically of what you said and what I said."

"I think it's important to have a tape recorder," Sheppard said. "It relates to why most trials are held in public." Sheppard noted that at a previous hearing a student had brought a tape recorder, but Wilson said that the student had signed a statement agreeing not to make the tape public.

"If I don't receive a fair hearing I want to have a transcript that I know I could make public." Sheppard said.

"The community is not going to decide on your case." Wilson said. "This Committee will decide. Nobody else."

Wilson suggested holding a meeting of the full committee to consider the tape recorder issue.

After Sheppard asked another question, Wilson asked whether, in fact, Sheppard's tape recorder was on. Sheppard said it was, and Wilson said, "I wasn't aware it was on. I have nothing further to say."

Wilson walked out of the room.

A new hearing will be scheduled.

[A transcript of the exchange between Sheppard and the panel will be published in tomorrow's CRIMSON.]

The incident for which Margolin. Sheppard, and Hyland were charged occurred in the Yard about 12:30 p.m. on December 11, as Dean May-used a bullhorn to warn black students occupying University Hall that they could "be suspended here and now."

"Dean May." according to a University statement distributed at the hearing "was being repeatedly harassed by a small band of persons, who surrounded him closely and tried to shout him down." After reading the warning, May walked to Massachusetts Hall and back: the students followed. Finally he left the Yard, and the students left him.

'Following Closely'

May's official charge against Margolin said he "subjected the Dean of Harvard College to harassment by following him closely and shouting, thus interfering with his freedom of movement and freedom of speech."

The following account of Margolin's hearing is necessarily incomplete, both because of the limited space and because of the impossibility of transcribing longhand an hour-long hearing. But it is as accurate and fair as is possible for me to produce:

After May read a short statement about Margolin's actions on December 11 and passed around a series of photos showing Margolin standing near May and in several case shouting, general discussion began.

The Committee does not consider itself or its fact-finding panels to be courts, and the discussion is very informal. Questions from members of the hearing panel alternated with sporadic discussion between May and Margolin and occasional questions from other members of the Committee who were present.

Political Power

Margolin persistently attempted to show that the students had not interfered with May's freedom during the incident-although he said at one point "if we had had power to stop him from reading [the statement] we would've done it." He later said he meant political, and not physical, power.

"Where were you attempting to go that you were prevented from going?" Margolin asked May early in the hearing.

"Away from you," May replied.

"Touche," Porte said.

Later Wilson asked Margolin, "Were you in fact, as the pictures suggest, among those near Mr. May, shouting and chanting?"

"Yes." Margolin replied.

Wilson then asked whether the demonstrators had intended either to make it difficult for others to hear May's statement or to make it difficult for May to read it.

"Our intention was to make OBU hear us," Margolin said.

Committee member Alan Heimert 49, Master of Eliot House, asked Margolin, "Do you fell the students inside that building should not have been apprised of possible consequences...?"

After some discussion, Margolin answered that it "was a matter of indifference both to them and to us. They knew what was going on; they were told by their leadership," he said.

Audible or Not?

Wilson then asked whether May's voice was in fact audible over the shouting. Williamson said that it was when May read the statement on the west side of University Hall, but that on the other side the shouting was "so loud Dean May could not continue" and a University policeman "held people back."

"Did you tell anyone to go away or shut up?" Margolin asked May later.

"No." May replied.

"Did you read the whole announcement?" Margolin asked.

"Yes." May said.

Hausler, the student member of the fact-finding panel, said later that the crucial word was impede: Did the shouting impede May?

"I would agree," Margolin said, "it made it more difficult for him to be heard."

Heimert called the treatment which the students had accorded May "inhuman." He asked whether Margolin meant by previous statements that "by being a public figure, by being dean of Harvard College, he [May] automatically can expect to be harassed."

Margolin said, "He should expect to be personally harassed, I guess, in the same way we're being harassed by cops."

May said later that if the demonstrators had not been present he would have rejoined the Subcommittee of Six in an undisclosed building. "I had no desire to lead my pursuers to that group," he said.

Margolin pressed May to explain just what the psychological harassment had been like.

"It was a little like being surrounded by dogs that are barking at you and baring their teeth." May said. After a long pause, Margolin said "Thank you." Then Heimert asked May to describe the nature of what Heimert called the demonstrators' "implicit threat."

"There is no way to describe it to any one who hasn't experienced it," May said. "I have a friend in Japan who was hospitalized two months-he was surrounded and shouted at until he collapsed."

"Do you think we were trying to make you faint?" Margolin asked him.

"I saw no reason to suppose you were going to desist," May said. "I was delighted and surprised when the pursuit ceased."

Margolin called May's fears "paranoid" and asked that his charges be dismissed. "We're being charged with being nasty," he said.

The charges were not dismissed.

"What do you think your reaction would be?" May asked Margolin. The shouting, he said, was "mindless," "hostile," and "called for no response."

"If I had been you," Margolin said, "I would've turned around, apologized, and quit my job."

There were a few minutes more of discussion, but Wilson soon cut it off. Porte seemed to speak for everyone when he said, "I've heard enough." Wilson told Margolin the fact-finding panel would report to the full committee, and that the committee would tell Margolin its decision.