Continue the Boycott

JOHN C. BERG, a Government graduate student, wasn't just kicked out of Harvard. He was sent to jail for nine months. After release from prison, he drove a laundry truck. When he returned to campus, administrators took him to court on trespassing charges, for which he was fined $20.

His crime: leading a dean out a door during the 1969 student takeover of University Hall.

Lowry Hemphill '72 was a freshman when she participated in the 1969 University Hall takeover. She received a warning after she was identified in photographs of students on the University Hall steps. In 1970 she received a suspended requirement to withdraw for her role in a demonstration she never attended.

A week later she joined a protest march outside Holyoke Center. All the protesters wore masks bearing the likeness of then-Dean of the College Ernest R. May so they would not be identified by the administration. Hemphill was spotted, identified, and, she later learned, suspended on the spot.

Hemphill and Berg were but two of 63 students forced to leave Harvard because the Committee on Rights and Responsibilities (CRR) determined they had abridged the rights of free speech at the University.

This week, the CRR, dormant for ten years and long considered a relic of a bygone ear, will case judgement on more than 100 students who participated in last month's eight-hour sit-in at the 17 Quincy St. headquarters of Harvard's governing boards and the blockade tow weeks ago of a South African diplomat in the Lowell House Junior Common Room.

The CRR--an outgrowth of the Committee of 15--was formed to combat, like a military tribunal, what administrators and Faculty correctly perceived to be a serious threat to the continued existence of Harvard University.

The Faculty endowed the CRR with tribunal-like powers; and permission to use hearsay evidence, to appeals of convictions, and the right to hand down any type of sentence. This includes anything from a formal warning to probation to--with the Faculty's approval--expulsion from Harvard.

Unlike the Administration Board, the 13-member CRR allows six students to serve as judges of their peers. But, with few exceptions, students for the last 15 years have intelligently boycotted what remains a serious threat to the rights of students at Harvard. What was ostensibly formed as a body to protect the free speech rights of all members of the Harvard community in fact has only served as a way to stifle legitimate political dissent on campus.

The CRR, though its membership changes everyyear, will always, by its very nature, be biased against students. Since the CRR is only convened after the Faculty determines that freedom at the University has been threatened, students called before the body are already presumed guilty. Since the CRR refuses to discuss the fundamental issues raised in the student protest--in this case the University's $580 million in South Africa-related investments--it cannot adequately judge the students for their actions.

While some will argue that the presence of six students on the 13-member committee will modify some of the CRR's decisions, their presence raises a host of problems. First, there is no adequate mechanism for determining which students will sit on the committee. Consequently, it is possible, even likely, that those students will pass judgement on their peers ideological rather than disciplinary grounds.

Second, though the seventh Faculty member casts a vote only in case of a six-six lie, students are still in the minority. Even a students majority on the CRR would not necessarily improve the situation, because it is uncertain how much influence they could have.

Third, and most important, is the issue of responsibility. While the University--and Dean of the College John B Fox Jr. '59 in particular--preaches about students taking responsibility for their actions, the University is unwilling to take responsibility for its actions. By including students on the committee the University can pretend that those disciplined were judged by the community as a whole and not by an administration trying to rid itself of young troublemakers. Moreover, it is not the place of students to pass judgement on their peers.

IF THE UNIVERSITY is truly prepared to take responsibility for the free speech of the community, it should feel free to send malcontents before the Administrative Board. Or, it students have allegedly broken the law, it should have them arrested.

While some may argue that students can reform the committee from within, there are so many fundamental and substantive problems with the body that the only was to solve them would be to eliminate it.

The CRR was formed to defend the University against students hell-bent on destruction of the school. It was broadly defined precisely because it needed the widest possible mandate to destroy the anti-war, anti-ROTC movement during the late sixties and early seventies. With few minor changes, the "war time" powers of the CRR remain today.

With the minor exception of the Lowell House blockade, the student pro-divestment, anti-apartheid movement has been conducted in the best traditions of the Rev. Martin Luther King. The use of the CRR to quash the movement and turn the debate away from its proper place--University conduct--is Big Brotherism of the most cynical and small-minded sort.

The CRR is not worth the paper it is printed on and students--for all their optimistic talk of reform and a new ear--should not even grace the CRR with their presence. The University will conduct its disciplinary action regardless of what the students do. Let them take responsibility for it too.