The CRR: Boycott for Reform

IF YOU THOUGHT the Committee on Rights and Responsibilities was dead, then you'd better start believing in resurrection, because the CRR is back--and still causing trouble.

This year's battle over the CRR began innocently enough: Dean Whitlock included instructions for nominating students to the CRR in his annual memo to House committee chairmen outlining the election procedures for CHUL and CUE. In the past, House committees usually disregarded the procedures for nominating students to the CRR, preserving the five-year student boycott. But this year the Mather and Winthrop House committees decided to put the question of continuing the boycott to a House referendum. Although the Quincy House committee voted to begin the process of nominating students for the CRR, a House petition has forced the question to a referendum today. The committees in most other Houses haven't voted one way or the other.

But the Dunster House committee voted Monday to continue its boycott of the CRR, and now is trying to get student representatives to draft proposals to reform the CRR. Unfortunately, the greatest obstacle facing would-be reformers is student ignorance: most undergraduates now at Harvard were not here during the most serious CRR disputes.

After the April 1969 occupation of University Hall, the Faculty passed a "Resolution on Rights and Responsibilities," stating what it believed to be the standards of conduct in an academic community. It then established the CRR to discipline students who violated the Resolution, and named six Faculty members and three students to serve on an interim CRR. All nine were members of the Committee of Fifteen, set up in earlier to investigate 150 disciplinary cases stemming from the occupation.

In the spring of 1970, the Faculty amended the Resolution, changing the structure of the CRR. Coincidentally, Richard Nixon launched his Cambodia incursion that May, and Harvard was once again engulfed in political protests. After these demonstrations, the student members of the CRR resigned--two because they agreed with the anti-war demonstrations, the third because of pressure from other students to resign. For whatever their reasons, those three students began the boycott of the CRR.

IN SPRING OF 1971, the Faculty changed the method of selecting student members for the CRR in the hope of finding students to serve on it. But twice that spring in University-wide referenda, students voted to boycott the CRR, temporarily foiling the Faculty's attempt to lend legitimacy to the CRR through student participation. In 1973, there was an attempt to nominate students for the CRR from Leverett House, but that failed, leaving the boycott intact.

Although the Resolution on Rights and Responsibilities has undergone a dizzying series of Faculty amendments, the CRR's weaknesses are still apparent. The Resolution says that the CRR can listen to all evidence presented to it, including hearsay evidence, which is not admissable in a court of law. The CRR can deny defendants the right to legal counsel or hold closed hearings. Students found guilty of "interference with members of the University in performance of their normal duties and activities," can be expelled, dismissed, or required to withdraw. The student has no avenue of appeal--he can only ask the CRR to reconsider his case. And then, if he has been thrown out of the University by the CRR and applies for readmission, the CRR must approve the student's application. They've got you coming and going.

A Faculty member or administrator who brings a complaint against a student need not be present at the student's hearing to be confronted, as in a court of law. Although the Resolution on Rights and Responsibilities has a section detailing the "responsibility" of officers of administration and instruction, there are no provisions in the Resolution for holding those officers accountable. In short, it's the Faculty's rights and the students' responsibilities that the Resolution dwells upon.

But the CRR continues to discipline students despite these objections and the student boycott. Last June, for example, the CRR admonished six students involved in a six-hour sit-in outside President Bok's office. Clearly the boycott has been ineffective in spurring the Faculty to change the CRR's structure and procedures.

ONLY THE FACULTY can amend the Resolution and the CRR's charter. The Faculty did make some changes in the CRR in 1972 in response to a student proposal, and there are members of the Faculty willing to support CRR reform. On the other hand, Faculty members are apathetic toward the CRR: they're tired of it, and don't look forward to discussing yet another CRR amendment.

There is a possible solution to the current standoff between boycotting students and resolute Faculty. The Dunster House committee has asked each House and the Freshman council to send two representatives to a meeting on Tuesday to suggest reforms for the CRR. Specific proposals that emerge from that meeting should be submitted to the Faculty. Those proposals will have to address the questions of hearsay evidence, the right of appeal, the vagueness of the Resolution's wording, and the student-Faculty balance on the CRR.

In its report of February 20, 1970, the Committee of Fifteen wrote, "It is safe to say that the success of the Resolution on Rights and Responsibilites will not ultimately be measured by its formal adoption by the Faculty, but by its adoption in the conscience of the entire University." The Resolution was ultimately adopted by the Faculty, but it certainly has not been adopted "in the conscience of the entire University." The reasons for this are clear--the CRR as it stands is a mockery of the judicial process, and must be reformed or abolished.