Green Men-in-Blue

HARVARD may be marginally tougher than Dartmouth at football, but when it comes to campus police, Dartmouth wins hands down.

That's right. While Harvard's men-in-blue post pictures of Henry David Thoreau, Class of 1836, in their lockers, Dartmouth's policemen prefer snap-shots of Dirty Harry.

At the most recent football game between the two Ivy League schools, Dartmouth police officers actually charged misbehaving freshmen and physically dragged them away from the Hanover stadium. And they did this in front of a large part of the student body.

The 'shmen, wearing green jerseys with "90" plastered on both sides, launched their annual attack on a group of Harvard cheerleaders during the halftime show.

After one Harvard cheerleader came away from the scuffle with a bloody face, the police chased after the freshmen, who were trying to rejoin their classmates in the stands.

What would have happened if the game had been in Cambridge? Most likely, Harvard patrolmen would have asked students suspected of assault and battery to volunteer to hand over their bursar's cards if they were in fact involved.

If no one responded, they would have left the stands to go watch the rest of the game and make plans for bowling that night.

In fact, last Saturday, when a band member from Brown decided to perform a full-fledged strip-tease during fourth-quarter play, Harvard policemen formed in small groups and watched the show.

AND YET, as wimpy as Harvard police act, it is obvious that their attitude is exactly what Harvard administrators want. It is clear that campus police have been told to stay out of the limelight no matter what it takes.

Ever since the police brutality charges that followed the Lowell House blockade two years ago, Harvard's men-in-blue have performed some of the best public relations work in town, making sure that student protests fizzled and died shortly after they began.

Instead of taking action against divestment activists when they erected shanties in the Yard last Spring, Harvard police actually helped protect them from attack from conservative groups on campus.

But earlier that year in Hanover, Dartmouth police had elected to battle and to arrest students almost daily. As the conflict raged on campus, the Hanover school's national image suffered severely. Twenty-five percent fewer Black students decided to enter the freshmen class this year.

You can only admire the patience of Harvard administrators and patrolmen to refuse to respond to protests clearly designed to provoke a response.

Instead of forcing their way through the blockade at the black-tie 350th dinner this September, police simply made sure the protesters and alumni kept their distance. They knew that any use of force would have created a media spectacle for the hordes of newsmen in town for the 350th hoopla.

Dartmouth patrolmen could learn quite a lot by watching their Cambridge counterparts in action. Just like their hero Dirty Harry, Dartmouth cops simply don't know what public relations is.

That's why they decided at the football game to take the most forceful approach possible despite the presence of a stadium of full of students, alumni, parents and guests.

Obviously the tough men at Hanover need to be kept on shorter leashes. They must learn that while harshness solves the immediate problem, it creates tension on campus and disaster in the news.

As long as Harvard police refuse to be provoked by student protests, the protesters will never succeed in gaining the national attention and student popularity necessary for the success of their movements.

On other hand, as long as Dartmouth police continue their all-out law enforcement strategy, student activism will rise and the university's image will decline.