The Rules in This University

IF YOU'VE EVER passed around a petition without the Dean of Students' permission, parked your car on the street overnight or had an "unregistered" friend over in your room, you've violated some of the University's rules and are liable to punishment--anything from admonition to the expunging of all your records.

The first rule in the Handbook of Undergraduate Regulations is that everyone must know the rules. Students caught deliberately sneaking a book out of the library are "ordinarily requested to withdraw," posters over 8 1/2 inches by 11 inches require prior approval of the dean, and no student may play "boisterous games in the Yard." The rules seem fairly innocuous.

Most of them go unenforced. Though a proctor may scare a freshman by reporting him for housing a pet in his room, the Ad Board rarely considers "dog and cat cases." The book also advises that anyone turning in a study card late is not only subject to an additional fee but "may face disciplinary action" but that rarely if ever occurs.

The rule on drug use is mild compared to the one against not showing your bursars card to any University official who demands it (a rule intended to make identifying rowdy demonstrators as easy as passing a hat for ID cards). The University "discourages" drug use, it does not prohibit it. Attempts to enforce a stricter rule on drugs--like trying to enforce parietal regulations--would meet unmanageable defiance.

The encouraging sign about recent changes in the rules, then, is that the University has removed itself from the regulation of student morals. But its new rules reflect Harvard's increasingly corporate orientation. Faculty members use them to keep student workloads high, and administrators design them for the efficient operation of their departments.

One of the few additions to this year's handbook was a regulation stating that anyone who hasn't paid his bill by the start of the term "will not be allowed to register and is subject to disciplinary action" [emphasis added]. The effect of this rule is fairly traumatic on a lot of students, especially since the Office of Fiscal Services doesn't send bills home during the summer, just complicated "worksheets." The policy gets results--one student from San Francisco bought a blank check at Bob Slate's and wrote out a $3000 check on a nonexistent account in a California bank. His father opened the account there before the check made its way out to the West Coast. The drawback to this rule is that it tells students on their first day here that Harvard is not a friendly, collegial institution; it is a corporation that must have its bills paid. You may be a Harvard National Scholar--one of the top ten admissions choices--or a member of the Rockefeller family, but you'll still face the bureaucrat telling you that until your check is received, you can't start school.

And a careful reading of the rules makes one uneasy about the kind of power the University asserts against its students. The right to petition, to distribute literature, to hold outdoor meetings can all be regulated at the discretion of the Deans. Dan Steiner, gerneral counsel to the University, said last week that the University has plenty of power to enforce these to the hilt. While the campus is quiet, these rules cause little friction, but during a major political confrontation, they could easily be used to discipline students and restrict protest.

It is the selective enforcement of these broad rules that makes them unfair; students who invite friends up or keep a pet in their room usually don't get into any trouble, but occasionally an overzealous proctor writing letters for students' files about how a student "violated the rules." Under the files law, you can now see these letters, but you can't have them removed, even though the proctor or dean acted without a full investigation and the Ad board refused to consider the case.

THE REGULATIONS ALSO promote the "it's a rule so I have to follow it" attitude among administrators. Students seeking a room or course change have to put up a big fight with the bureaucracy before they can get any action on their problems. One professor tells of his attempt to get an exemption from an examination for one of his students, which led to an "interrogation" by other faculty and endless paperwork.

For a student, fighting an arbitrary decision by an administrator or faculty member can be a hopeless task. For complaints against students, the faculty has discretionary power over grading and can complain to the Ad Board or the Committee for Rights and Responsibilities. Students may go to the Commission on Inquiry, a group with no power to reverse decisions, no matter how outrageously the student is wronged. Students have very limited say (through a few representatives in the CHUL) about what rules they live by in this community, and even less say in their fair administration.

This system--placing unlimited discretion in faculty members charged with running the University in a paternalistic manner--might be suited to a close knit academic community founded on trust and understanding. But as the University becomes more impersonal, fairness towards students requires a more open administration and formal procedures for student grievances. As the University community becomes more like the outside world, students should be recognized to have rights, not merely demeaning obligations.