Student Rejection of CRR Doesn't Influence Faculty

The main thing wrong with the Committee on Rights and Responsibilities (CRR) as a disciplinary body is that there are virtually no students left at Hanvard with any faith at all in the committee's legitimacy. The Harvard Faculty steadfastly refuses to believe this, and perpetuates the CRR myth in meeting after meeting, through hour after hour of debate.

On Tuesday the Faculty approved the final portion of the CRR resolution-the actual mechanisms of discipline. A petition demanding that the CRR be abolished gathered over 1100 signatures in two hours Tuesday afternoon. For the most part Faculty members ignored this petition, much as they ignored the Harvard-Radcliffe Policy Committee referendum in early March, in which students rejected the current version of the resolution by a three-to-one margin.

NEWS ANALYSIS

The CRR is primarily an institution for student discipline. While the resolution admits the possibility of administrative guide, clauses equating student and administrative responsibility were eliminated by the Faculty in their rejection of the March 24 version of the resolution, and the machinery of Faculty discipline-in which students play no part-has been returned to committee for further deliberation.

If the CRR is to have any validity at all in the discipline of students, if it is to be seen as anything more than a kangaroo court useful for eliminating political dissent, it is essential that students accept its authority. They do not.

Some Faculty members understand this, but they are a tiny minority. Charles G. Gross, lecturer on Psychology. proposed at Tuesday's meeting that no portion of the CRR resolution be effective until ratified by a student referendum. "A law to be effective must depend on the consent of the governed," Gross told the Faculty. "It shocks and dismays me that the Faculty seems unaware that these mechanisms are totally unacceptable to the majority of students-not just to the far left."

Gross's amendment was defeated by a vote of 125-49.

Since its conception last September, the CRR has been denounced by student radicals. What the Faculty does not perceive is that by now all moderate support is lost as well.

Two of the three student members of the interim CRR-Kirby Wilcox '70 and Richard W. Hansler '71-resigned last week. "I find it morally very difficult to work for the strike and punish students at the same time." Wilcox said Tuesday. "I question whether a fair trial can be held in such times."

As for the new CRR. Quincy House and Radcliffe refused to elect repre-sentatives. The representative from Dudley House is committed to resign if the hearings are not made public. One of the GSAS representatives was elected on a platform of trying to oppose the committee, and "is prepared to cooperate with plans to disrupt."

No Cooperation

Moderates on the various student-Faculty committees-empowered by the CRR resolution to invoke temporary suspensions and consult with the Faculty Council in finding replacements should vacancies on the CRR occur-announced Tuesday that they would refuse to cooperate in any way.

"We were not elected to exercise disciplinary authority and we will not do it." Richard S. Tilden '71 of the Committee on Undergraduate Education (CUE) said Tuesday night. The entire CUE has agreed not to serve the CRR, Tidden said.

And P. Douglass Tucci '72, of the Committee on Houses (COH), said last night that his committee is not prepared to give any active support whatsoever to the CRR. Characterizing himself as moderate, and the committee as reasonably moderate to conservative. Tucci said, In face of the overwhelming lack of support among students for this mechanism, it is dangerous to go ahead and use it."

According to David Holmstrom, the GSAS representative, there are two ways of objecting to the CRR. From the liberal viewpoint, it is "completely illegitimate because it has no popular base." From the radical viewpoint, "even if it had a popular base it would be bad because the actions it takes are bad."

Faculty members blanch at the cry of radicals that the CRR is useful only as a means of stifling political dissent. But since its conception this Fall the CRR has heard charges against: 20 SDS members for the Nov. 19 sit-in at University Hall; 36 blacks and four whites for the Dec. 5 and 11 occupations of University Hall by OBU; 20 students for the April 9 demonstration at the CFIA: and 56 students for militant picketing outside University Hall Monday.

None of the black students attended their hearings. A handful of whites did bringing tape recorders and reporters in an attempt to force the hearings to be open.

Universal Laws

"Although the CRR claims to be setting up universal laws, all victims in the past and all prospective victims have been people with particular political viewpoints." Holmstrom said.

With hysterical concern for academic freedom and serenity, the Faculty ignores all this, objecting only to those portions of the CRR resolution dealing with their own responsibilities. When Samuel S. Bowles, assistant professor of Economics, says, "the Faculty is totally out of touch with the student body," and Hilary W. Putnam, professor of Philosophy, calls the CRR "machinery of political repression," the Faculty does not hear, or perhaps does not care: "Putnam feels that any effort to penalize misconduct infringes on the student's right to militancy," David S. Landes, professor of History, told the Faculty Tuesday. "We need these mechanisms for our own protection."

Perhaps. But without student support the CRR is hollow protection indeed, a paper tiger with its tail already aflame.