Not So Fast

THE DEMISE of the much-despised Committee on Rights and Responsibilities (CRR) seems near. The Faculty Council voted last week to approve a plan that would replace the disciplinary body with a new student-faculty committee. The plan now awaits the approval of the full faculty. Disciplinary reform is speeding right along.

Before the dust settles, though, we should make sure that one flawed disciplinary body is not replaced by another. For the new body to ensure justice in the Harvard community, it must enjoy the full faith and confidence of those who live under its jurisdiction. Does the new committee deserve such support?

Definitely not. First, the Administration has undercut the legitimacy the proposed new body might ever hope to achieve, if implemented, by trying to coerce student support. That is just what Dean of the Faculty A. Michael Spence was doing when he threatened to scrap disciplinary reform altogether if the current proposal is rejected. Second, the substance of the proposal itself leaves much to be desired. Like the CRR, for instance, the new board is empowered to conduct business as usual even if all of its undergraduate members were to boycott any of its meetings.

It is unfortunate that the proposed reforms do not tackle a fundamental injustice of Harvard's disciplinary system: the existence of separate bodies to adjudicate disputes involving faculty and staff. In the country of which Harvard is a part there is not one court system for the powerful and a second for the less powerful. There should not be two systems here. Although undergraduates and faculty members are not peers, members of each group should be guaranteed equal rights in a community such as Harvard. Separate courts are inadequate to ensure that.

The proposed new body would have a veto power over the rights of students brought before it. While an accused student could, under the proposal, decide whether the Ad Board or the new body should hear his case, the majority of the student-faculty body could override the student's request. Similarly, a student could call for an open meeting but have his request denied by a majority of the committee.

In short, arbitrariness pervades the proposal. It is designed to hear cases in which there is no set precedent. Its decisions will establish "community standards." What this means is that the new body will legislate as well as judge, making up standards as it hears cases.

What we need is a clear body of rules which the community can debate and agree upon; these rules, in turn, should serve as the constraints under which the new body operates. The new body's potential for arbitrariness must be limited; clear rules to govern the entire community--students, faculty and staff alike--must be established. Otherwise disciplinary reform will be no reform at all.