Heads in the Sand

ONCE AGAIN, THE STUDENT-FACULTY committee drafting plans for a new disciplinary board to replace the controversial Committee on Rights and Responsibilities (CRR) is readying a proposal for approval by the faculty. And once again, the proposal skirts the fundamental problems with the CRR.

While addressing concerns about regular meetings, open hearings and an improved process for selecting student members of the proposed disciplinary body, the planning committee has avoided the two major issues in the debate about the CRR.

First is the problem of dual prosecutory bodies for political and nonpolitical offenses. The CRR was set up to deal exclusively with so-called political cases; that practice must end. The proposed committee is to hear cases in which there are not "well-defined community standards." That sounds like a euphemism for controversial--read: political--cases. It indicates the unwillingness of the planning committee to tackle the real problem of drafting a set of guidelines for which cases ought to be heard by the new disciplinary body.

The second basic problem is that the proposal simply ignores the need for clearly mandated procedures of due process; the right to an open hearing is but a minor sop in this direction. Standards of evidence, standards of punishment, criteria for calling witnesses and cross-examining them must all be explicitly stated in the new committee's charter. To say, as the University has suggested, that the committee will make such decisions according to an evolving body of common law is to say that it will function like the CRR. The new body must guarantee an opportunity for cross-examination, and not make judgements on the basis of hearsay evidence.

It is discouraging that after over a year of deliberations, the University has been unable or unwilling to address the two most basic issues confronting the disciplinary process at Harvard. We can only hope the committee goes back to drawing board for another try--this time with the will to grapple with the issues instead of once again cloaking them in vague formulas.