Road to Judicial Board Marked by Compromise

The road to the abolishment of the Committee on Rights and Responsibilities (CRR) was a treacherous route marked by compromises that eventually ended with a disciplinary body that proved acceptable to both students and faculty.

The Faculty of Arts and Sciences accepted yesterday afternoon without dissent a new Student-Faculty Judicial Board, which Dean of the College L. Fred Jewett '57 had shepherded through almost two years of drafting, revision and negotiation.

But the process that led to the demise of the CRR began almost immediately after its conception 17 years ago.

Designed as an alternative to the Administrative Boards for disciplinary cases involving the rights of free speech and movement, the CRR sparked student protest within a year of its creation.

Instituted in 1970, in response to the April 1969 student takeover of University Hall, the CRR theoretically had seven faculty and six student members. However,

"Student membership is absolutely invaluable, ahelp to the whole process," said Professor ofAstronomy and of the History of Science Owen J.Gingerich '53, who has served on the CRR.

"The CRR wasn't successful with students or inearning a great deal of credibility," said Jewett.

For that reason administrators determined thatthey had to replace the CRR if they wantedstudents to drop their pickets and take theirseats on a joint student-faculty disciplinarybody.

Because student perceptions of the CRR havebeen so uniformly negative-as the more than decadelong boycott would attest-the convening of thatdisciplinary body became almost as newsworthy asthe actions it investigated.

In an interview earlier this week, Dean of theFaculty A. Michael Spence-the Universityadministrator responsible for deciding whether toconvene the CRR-said that student perceptions ofthe body, which he called mistaken, made itdifficult to use effectively.

The new Judicial Board serves practically thesame function as the CRR. But for a variety ofreasons, including the outreach for student inputinto the crafting of the body and the fact that ithas been given a mandate to investigate a greaterrange of misbehavior, the Judiciary Board isexpected to have a broader impact onUniversity-wide disciplinary policies.

Jewett said that because the new body is likelyto meet more often it would become the center forcampus-wide debate and discussion on unprecedenteddisciplinary issues. This was something that theCRR hoped to achieve, but never did because it metso infrequently, Jewett said.

Indeed the chairman of the UndergraduateCouncil, Richard S. Eisert '88, believes the newbody will be very busy. Eisert predicted that manystudents will choose to go before the JudicialBoard because it handles cases more fully and withgreater due process than the Ad Board.

Because it may meet so often it will have aconstant influence in determing the values of theHarvard community, Jewett said.

The new body "doesn't have legislative powers,but on the other hand, the committee may handlethe debate and views of the community," he said.

While the Judicial Board is expected to breaknew trails on the frontiers of discipline the CRRwas specifically designed to uphold one Universityregulation, the Resolution on Rights andResponsibilities(RRR).

Approved by the Faculty in 1970, the RRRguarantees freedom of speech, movement andassembly and was designed in response to thepolitical protests of the Vietnam-era.

Spence said that the document has becomeoutdated. "It depends on the times you live,"Spence said, "when the document was made, protestswere more important." The RRR should be thought ofas a statement of principles of one area, Spencesaid, adding that the rights it protects are nomore important than others.

But the political issues which the RRRaddressed can not be made to vanish as easily as astudent-faculty committee.

Jewett said he thinks it is possible todiscipline protesters uncontroversially. He saidthat because the new body has a widerjurisdiction, disciplinary hearings for politicalprotest will not engender the conflict they havein the past when students charged that the CRR wasa poltical tribunal.

But the Judicial Board may have already lostits chance to discuss a major issue involvingpolitical protest. Spence has asked the Ad Board, notthe new body, to investigate the blockade twoweeks ago by members of the Southern AfricaSolidarity Committee. In doing so Spence said hehoped the Ad Board would review and develop aconsensus condemning blockades as a form ofprotest