A Common Standard

TWENTY years ago this week, the rising tide of activism at Harvard erupted into the most dramatic confrontation in Harvard's history, dividing the student body and faculty, and pitting both against the administration. On April 9, 1969, hundreds of students occupied University Hall, demanding the expulsion of the Reserve Officers Training Corps (ROTC), the introduction of Afro-American studies courses and an end to the University's encroachment on Cambridge neighborhoods.

The next morning, 400 police officers in riot gear, under orders from former President Nathan M. Pusey '28 stormed the building and brutally removed the demonstrators.

The images of the raid--helmeted officers swinging billy clubs at students, blood spilled on the sidewalks of Harvard Yard--brought even moderate students into open conflict with the administration.

For the next eight days, as many as two thirds of students, joined by sympathetic teaching fellows and faculty, struck in protest of the administration's actions.

The accomplishments of the '69 spring of discontent are notable. The University no longer lends facilities and academic legitimacy to ROTC. Harvard now grants degrees in Afro-American studies. And a low-income tenement that Harvard intended to demolish still stands.

BUT the shortcomings of the '69 spring are just as remarkable. Afro-Am remains inadequately supported. The University is still under the strict control of the secretive and undemocratic Harvard Corporation, which is virtually unaccountable to students, faculty and alumni.

And although President Derek C. Bok has never unleashed riot police upon students, Harvard's administration remains aloof and unresponsive to student and faculty initiatives.

While we reaffirm our endorsement of the strikers goals and our admiration for their efforts and accomplishments, it is the failures of the apogee of Harvard activism that contemporary activists ought to examine.

Those who hold up the seizure of University Hall as a paradigmatic model for campus movements cannot fail to be disappointed by the low-intensity, low-visibility activism that characterizes the University today. With a few notable exceptions, such as last year's sit-in at the office of Law School Dean James Vorenberg '49, campus activism at Harvard usually takes the form of unglamorous, nuts-and-bolts work, be it in the union office or homeless shelter. But who can say that these types of activism are any less valid or socially productive than shutting down the University?

IN an era when students are widely accused of lukewarm activism, or worse, political apathy, we should hold contemporary activists tactics and the protests of 1969 up to a common standard--that of successes won and changes effected.

The student and alumni divestment movement--in moving from mass protests and the erection of shanties in 1984 and 1985 to the alternative slate of pro-divestment overseers candidates nominated by petition for the past four years--has demonstrated a willingness to continually address the success of its tactics. There is no standard set of tactics that is right for every movement or for every point in history. Without an overwhelmingly polarizing issue such as Vietnam to unite behind, there is no easy formula for increasing political activity. The point is to keep trying.

The lesson of 1969 is that, while neither style of activism is demonstrably superior, both require mass participation--a key criterion by which much of today's activism falls short--regardless of the tactics. Although the radical ideology and tactics of the '69 strikers may well have alienated the administration and fueled reaction, the very vehemence of the '69 protests got results.

The University Hall takeover and the strike forced the administration's hand on the ROTC issue. Demonstrations and a letter campaign recently succeeded in twice delaying the implementation of recommendations in the Young Report, which would diminish the discretion of alumni over University policy.

Though today's protesters may not be carrying Dean Archie C. Epps III out of University Hall, much of the new activism can and has effected real change, provided that it incorporates mass participation. This should be the lesson of 1969, as seen from a 1989 perspective.