New Method Is Suggested For Disciplining Faculty

The University Committee on Governance has proposed the first formal mechanism for hearing complaints against Harvard faculty members.

The new committee-which could also discipline administrators who are members of a faculty-must be approved first by the individual faculties and then by the University Governing Boards.

Since the Corporation alone has the authority to discipline University officials, this committee would have only advisory powers. However, the proposed procedures suggest that the Corporation would normally act on the committee's recommendations.

The committee would consider two types of cases. The first category includes faculty members accused of "grave misconduct or neglect of duty," and administrators charged with "grave misconduct." According to University Statutes, such offenses can result in dismissal.

Can Consider Violations

The committee can also consider alleged violations of the third paragraph of the University-wide Statement on Rights and Responsibilities, which protects "freedom of speech and academic freedom, freedom from personal force and violence, and freedom of movement."

In its report, the Committee on Governance specified that the committee could not judge charges resulting from the Statement's second paragraph-which protects the rights to "organize and join political associations, convene and conduct public meetings, publicly demonstrate and picket in orderly fashion, advocate and publicize opinion by print, sign, and voice"-if they are not subsumed by the freedoms of the third paragraph.

'Had to Hold'

Explaining this distinction, Clark Byse, professor of Law and one of the drafters of the document, said, "If an administrator had to hold for a free and open university, he might easily be accused of violating the Statement. With paragraph three, a student filing charges would have to show a definite violation of academic freedom."

The proposals do not specify whether a student can bring charges against a University official. "My assumption is that since we decided not to say that only a dean can bring a complaint, that screening committees could determine whether any case was appropriate for disciplinary hearings," Paul M. Bator, professor of Law and organizer of the procedure drafting, said yesterday.

The discussion that accompanies the proposed procedures predicts that "formal disciplinary proceedings looking to the removal of a faculty memberwould usually be instituted by a dean or other responsible authority of the faculty or University."

If the recommended procedures are approved, each faculty will create a screening committee to field initial complaints, Each faculty has the power to set up its own screening committee.

A screening committee can then pass the complaint on to a hearing committee composed of seven faculty members. Members of hearing committees would be selected in a two-step process, First, each faculty would elect seven representatives to a pool; then, from this pool, faculty members of the University Committee on Rights and Responsibilities would select the hearing committee. The faculty members of the UCRR would also determine the procedures of the hearing committee.

The UCRR, along with the University-Wide Statement on Rights and Responsibilities, was created last Fall to coordinate the actions of the CRR's of the different faculties.

An original plan for a faculty disciplinary committee was rejected by the Faculty of Arts and Sciences last Spring. That scheme would have created bipartite hearing committees composed of faculty and Corporation representatives.

The new procedures conform more closely to recommendations put forth by the Association of American University Professors (AAUP).

"Under prodding, they have gone a long way to meeting the standards of due process that the AAUP suggests," Everett I. Mendelsohn, professor of the History of Science and a leader of last Spring's campaign against the original procedures, said yesterday. However, Mendelsohn objected to one provision of the new proposal which states that two Corporation Fellows would be invited to attend the hearings as nonvoting observers.