The Faculty's CRR

FROM AN ACTIVIST'S perspective, the seemingly interminable debate over the Committee on Rights and Responsibilities has polarized the College community and pointed up the fears and prejudices of the Harvard faculty.

The first conclusion is not too convincing, for there appear to be, particularly among more recent classes, large numbers of students who could care less about the CRR. In fact, most people in the Classes of 1975 and 1976 cannot fall back on experience or first-hand knowledge to judge the merits of the CRR debate. They repeat the objections of their predecessors--if they pay any attention to the CRR at all. To say that the CRR has polarized students in 1973 as it did in 1971 is to admit an importance which most undergraduates do not lend to the debate.

Any CRR referendum today is predestined to failure because most students make simple assumptions about student discipline which are antithetical to the current structure of the CRR. Students feel that the Resolution on Rights and Responsibilities is too "elastic" and therefore unjust; and while most have never seen, much less read, the Resolution, they are right that it could stand revision. The ratio of students and Faculty on the CRR, and voting guidelines for Committee decisions, are stumbling blocks for those who feel that students should be judged by their peers, or at least by a number of peers equal to the number of Faculty on the CRR. And, there is a considerable undercurrent of opposition to a committee which judges political offenses without instruction to consider the context of students' actions, and without reciprocal judgment of administrative responsiveness.

The conclusion that the CRR has provided insight to the machinations of Faculty politics is more attractive; indeed, the Faculty's reaction to these assumptions by students has always been the most intriguing aspect of the CRR ruckus.

The notion that only students should judge other students is a precise, logical statement. It makes good sense: after all, judgment by peers is ingrained in American jurisprudence. But the catch is that this logical precision is undercut by an academic hierarchy in which Faculty assume intellectual and extracurricular ascendancy over students. The logic of outside institutions is lost to it, along with what another editor of this newspaper has called "University democracy."

University democracy is an alluring proposition. Harvard would never permit it altogether; but what is most baffling is the Faculty's near-complete rejection of the idea. Sad to say, its patronizing rejection last week of mild revisions to the CRR was typical. As the Faculty prepared to pass over all but one structural amendment proposed by William Paul, a colleague noted, "[he] deserves our gratitude for this chore of preventive maintenance." It is reassuring at least to know that preventive maintenance is now a Faculty concern.

Outworn stratagems underpinned the Faculty's affirmation of the present CRR: the Faculty best knows how to protect teaching and research institutions [Samuel Beer]; the rights of the Faculty to teach and to do research are jeopardized by students [James Q. Wilson]; the Faculty has been double-crossed by students before and must protect itself [Beer].

Barrington Moore even posed the question of whether reforms enlarging student powers had worked at other universities. This is akin to assessing federal poverty programs on the basis of past failures; since previous programs failed, the poor should fend for themselves [Richard Nixon].

The Faculty's attitudes on the CRR are reminiscent of 1969. And 1969, to most Harvard students today, is a long way in the past.

A Faculty unable to break away from the fears of a bygone era, to catch up with the cooler reassessments of the students they teach, did not vote equal representation for students on the CRR. So how can anyone presume that the same Faculty will go a step further to allow students alone to judge other students?

We will never know whether Harvard students, whose distaste for student government is seemingly pervasive, would agree to serve on an all-student disciplinary committee; whether such a committee's votes would be more harsh or more lenient than a Faculty CRR; whether students would accept the judgment of their peers. And these are the intrigues of University democracy.

The Faculty did approve one of Paul's motions last week, chartering a review of the Commission on Inquiry. What, in the context of a University democracy, should such a commission do? The logical precision which tells us that students should be judged by peers indicates a commission representative of the entire Harvard community which would have broad power to review administrative decisions which affect us all.

The commission would have no punitive powers--it would not, as some have suggested in jest, be empowered to put President Bok on probation if he did not respond to the needs of the community. But it would be entitled to full accounts from administrators so that it could best handle complaints of administrative obstinance.

Of course, the Faculty will never allow recommendations of such scope to slip past its veto. It may have approved a review of the Commission's function, but it will never broaden the Commission's powers so that it would upset the Faculty's hierarchical ascendancy. That is too bad, because a strong Commission on Inquiry might ease the problems of student discipline at Harvard. Paul has made the point that the CRR's decision last Spring to acquit the Mass Hall occupiers proves that the Resolution on Rights and Responsibilities can be interpreted to include the context of political actions. A strong Commission on Inquiry would complement this interpretation by giving students a review of administrative decision-making which could have considerable impact. This Faculty won't buy that.

The irony is that nine times out of ten, a fair and representative Commission on Inquiry would concur with the conclusions of a responsive, even-handed administration. It is probable that an inquiry last Spring would have found that the Bok Administration had given more than due consideration to the divestiture issue; the Commission would have considered whether the Administration had been responsive to the community, not whether divestiture was right or wrong.

But the same perspective which dominated last week's Faculty meeting averts outside assessments of administrative responsiveness. In turn, students reject out of hand unchallenged administrative conclusions. And so do they scoff at a Faculty which works from tired prejudices and outdated fears of a student coup d'etat.

On Balance will appear as a weekly column this Spring.