On CRR

To The Editors of The Crimson:

In light of the recent initiatives towards reactivation of the Committee on Rights and Responsibilities with student involvement, we would like to express our positions on the issues. Most of the information that has been disseminated through institutional forums--newspaper stories and house meetings--has been very negative and critical of the Faculty Council's decision to refer discipline, y actions involving the recent protests at 17 Quincy Street and Lowell House to the CRR, and of the CRR itself. From conversations with individual students, however, a much more varied range of students opinion becomes apparent. A large number of the students that we have talked with feel, along with us, that there are not inherent problems with the CRR. They have no objection to the CRR's existence as it is now constituted, to students serving on the committee, or to the CRR's dealing with the excesses of the recent protests.

Specific attacks have been made against the Administration and Faculty in this dispute on four counts. Three of these we see as addressing structural concerns: a) There should not be two separate forums for disciplinary action; the Administrative Board alone should act in that capacity. b) The CRR as constituted possesses unreasonably broad and arbitrary disciplinary powers, and at present represents an ideological homogeneity that makes objective decisions unlikely. c) Student participation on the committee is unacceptable; students should not be forced (or allowed) to judge their peers. The fourth charge is more ideological: d) that the CRR is a "hit squad" to persecute students for political beliefs that the administration finds problematic. We would like to make clear our position on each of these charges.

a) The existence of two separate forums for disciplinary action is quite reasonable. The Administrative Board is intended to make decision on cases involving exceptions to, and infractions of, academic rules and social codes of conduct of the University. The CRR, on the other hand, exists to address cases involving violations of the second and third paragraphs of the Resolution on Rights and Responsibilities, which address violations of more general civil rights and freedoms. Such cases are likely to involve issues of wider scope than are motivated actions. The CRR was created during the violent political protests of the late '60s and early '70s with the express purpose of providing students accused of such violations with a more responsive and flexible disciplinary body than the Administrative Board.

b) The CRR's disciplinary powers are very similar to those of the Administrative Board, but with important exceptions. The differences are these: 1) The CRR has available to it more levels of severity of sanctions than does the Administrative Board, thus greater ability to fit punishment to the transgression; 2) Both the complainant and the defendant may appear before the CRR in its hearings, along with observers, and advisor, and witnesses. In Administrative Board cases, the defendant alone may appear, and then only when appealing a disciplinary requirement to withdraw. The most severe penalties available to the CRR, dismissal and expulsion, require a vote by the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, just as with the Administrative Board. Moreover, students do have the right to appeal; a defendant may ask the CRR to reconsider any decision it has made, while the Administrative Board only hears appeals under the above circumstance of a disciplinary requirement to withdraw. The CRR's powers are certainly not excessive compared with those of the Administrative Board; in fact, the CRR appears to be more flexible in its available methods and responses. Furthermore, the charge that the ideological similarity of the faculty members of the Committee renders objective decisions difficult is hard to understand. Surely the Administrative Board, overwhelmingly composed of members of the Administration (Allston Burr Senior Tutors and various Deans of the Faculty and the College), presents a more unified bloc than would a committee of seven members elected from a diverse faculty and six student representatives.

c) It is also difficult to understand students' strenuous objection to judgment by a disciplinary committee which includes their peers, given the precedents for such bodies at other universities, and the likelihood that students before such a committee would find a more sympathetic consideration of their motivations and interests than they might from one composed entirely of Administration or Faculty members. It is astounding that students would not welcome the opportunity to participate in and have an influence on the decisions of this committee.

d) The purpose of the Committee on Rights and Responsibilities are set forth in the Handbook for Students, in the second and third paragraphs of the Resolution on Rights and Responsibilities (pages 78-79): They are 1. To see that the University honors its obligation to "affirm, assure, and protect the rights of its members to organizations, convene and conduct public meetings, publicly demonstrate and picket in orderly fashion, advocate, and publicize opinion by print, sign, and voice;" 2. To deal with any interferences with the administrative processes and activities of the University, and actions by members of the University that violate the civil rights of others, including the rights of "freedom of speech and academic freedom, freedom from personal force and violence, and freedom of speech and academic freedom, freedom form personal force and violence, and freedom of movement." The holding an orderly expression of political beliefs is not in any way subject to action by the CRR. It is only Violent and or disruptive action which are expression of political or moral beliefs that are unacceptable and which are the concern of the CRR. In Short, the Committee on Rights and Responsibilities does not exist in censure or censor, directly or indirectly, anyone's political or moral beliefs--rather, it is constituted to discipline those who, in expressing such beliefs, abridge the civil rights of members and guests of the academic community.

We are sympathetic to the legitimate problems of time constraints. The administration's rush to solicit student members and reach a decision during exam period, at a time when student awareness of the issues is very low, cannot achieve the end it intends, namely, effective student participation Resolution of these issues should be postponed until next fall.

We wish to make our feelings clear as a dissenting voice to the hostile and critical attitude we have seen in house meeting and in print. We feel that a major contributor to these attitudes is a remarkable lack of accurate information which in effect amounts to misinformation. It the widespread opinions based on inaccurate information were the only ones to be heard, it would be easy to assume of negative student opinion. We deny any such consensus. Chandler Bryan '85-'86   Thomas Lockerby '87