Change From Within

IN ITS 16-YEAR HISTORY, the Committee on Rights and Responsibilities (CRR) has been the subject of much controversy. Since it was formed to discipline students involved in the April 1969 University Hall takeover, it has convene 13 times. From 1971 until it last heard a case in 1975, however, no students have sat on the committee.

Although administrators have invited students annually to participate as voting members of the six-student, six-faculty, member committee, the House committees have continually refused to nominate delegates.

Now, when the University is considering taking disciplinary action against students involved in two recent anti-apartheid protests, the CRR's re-assemblance is no less controversial. The University, for its part, has demonstrated a lack of concern for student participation by of the committee so soon after the two recent incidents, leaving students almost no time to reach a consensus on continuing the boycott. Yet such refusal by students to join would be unwise, unpragmatic, and pointless.

This is not to say, however, that the CRR should be condoned. Students have raised serious and legitimate objections to the committee and its proceedings included in these objections are:

*that it denies students the right to appeal their cases:

*that it is unclear whether the guidelines of the CRR permit the sue of hearsay evidence--as well as what constitutes hearsay evidence--in student prosecutions:

*and that student delegates are elected randomly through House committees, which since the Undergraduate Council's formation in 1982, have been relegated to the role of planning House parties and T-shirt designs.

Nonetheless, reforms of these problems can only be achieved if students join the committee. In 1978, members of the freshman class temporarily lifted the boycott in order to push for reforms in the CRR. These students made some gains--including public transcripts and an equal student-Faculty balance on the committee. It is time for the classes of '86-'88 to pick up where the class of '81 left off.

ONLY BY SITTING on the committee may students gain acceptance for reforms in parts of the CRR they find questionable. Furthermore, the anti-apartheid movement concerns a large portion of the student body, and it is imperative that students have a say in what comes of the Lowell House blockade and the 17 Quincy St. sit-in.

The presence of students on the CRR has arguably been instrumental in guaranteeing a fairer trial. "A lot more than three students would have been dismissed if it weren't for the students who sat on the committee," said John P. Fernandez '69, a student delegate who sat on the CRR that tried the 138 students involved in the April, 1969 occupation of University Hall.

Most importantly, it should be noted that a student boycott of the CRR will achieve nothing, thus far it has only led Harvard to grant the CRR full power to function without students sitting on the committee. In the 13 times that the Faculty Council has called upon the CRR since 1969, the Council has never rescined its decision to convene it in the year would effectively disband the committee is nothing but romantic idealism. It is time for students to stop washing their morality laden hands of the CRR.

Students have termed the committee "illegitimate." But it is only following orders to uphold a piece of University legislation known as the Resolution on Rights and Responsibilities (RRR). Much of the problem with the CRR stems from the fact that the RRR is vague enough to allow students to be prosecuted for their political beliefs CRR opponents wrongly claim that the committee's preconceived purpose is to stifle political dissent. This is factually incorrect in two respects.

First, the CRR exists for just the opposite reason--to enforce the rights to free speech and movement at the University, which those involved in the Lowell House blockade clearly did not allow South African diplomat Abe Hopenstein. In addition, the committee was created as a special body to hear more complicated cases in which political dissent may constitute a reasonable extenuating circumstance to pardon conduct that the Administrative Board--the College's traditional disciplinary body--normally would punish.

The Ad Board--like the CRR--has authority to uphold the RRR and to levy the same range of punishments against students. But the Ad Board, unlike the CRR, takes these measures without student input, does not allow students (except on an appeal) to appear in person before it to defend their actions, and does not have the same ability to handle mass offenses.

House Committee chairmen voted on Friday to ask the Faculty to postpone the convening of the CRR until the fall, when they will be able to consider more carefully the issues surrounding the legitimacy of the committee and when they have time to carry out proper elections of students delegate to the CRR. We support this request. We recommend that the CRR postpone its meeting until next fall, when it can convene as a student-Faculty committee, not a Faculty monolith.