Tuesday's Protestors Were Disrespectful and Vindictive

To the Editor:

Whenever I am asked about Harvard, I respond by praising its students, who impressed me from the moment I came here six years ago. What I've admired in students I've come to know, more than their intelligence, hard work and high spirits, is their moral seriousness that expresses itself in respect for the school, in strong values and principles and in common decency. But yesterday I was ashamed of a group of Harvard students, and I would like to express my disappointment.

The case being discussed by the Faculty of Arts and Sciences yesterday afternoon (News, March 9) was exceptionally sensitive, involving disciplinary action against a student accused of rape. Strong disciplinary action was going to be taken in any case; the debate was to determine the level of severity. Outside University Hall gathered students drumming and chanting, a happy little mob urging that "justice be done!" This would not be the first group of self-righteous protesters that tries to drown out debate with thuggish tactics, but the tactics were especially troubling in light of the case being discussed.

Let's take the violations one by one. It is uncommonly rude to speak while someone else has the floor; ruder still when those speaking are your elders; and rudest of all when the proceedings in question concern the fate of a human being.

Drowning out speech is a tactic of intimidation. Since the students obviously felt that the Faculty was subject to intimidation, what does this tell us about the moral climate we have spawned? Is it simply coincidence that the Faculty voted according to the demonstrators' wishes, or did the students expect their intimidation to work? Will this now encourage greater contempt for a faculty that is presumed to vote according to the dictates of a mob? Although Faculty may well have cast their votes irrespective of the chanting, the demonstrators ensured the corruption of the process, cultivating disrespect for the deliberative procedure itself.

Never before in my lifetime on university campuses have I seen students demanding a penalty for a classmate harsher than the one being considered by the administration. Much as I credit the seriousness of rape, I have to wonder at the political hysteria that has turned students against one of their own. Why this vindictiveness against a student already punished by the law and expelled from the campus for the next five years? Why the vendetta, the drumrolls, the slogans?

It is surely appropriate for the Faculty to debate punishment of a student who has confessed to violating the law, but since when do his peers become his prosecutors? Had students been interested in justice, they might have maintained a hushed vigil around the deliberative body that was trying to act justly. They might have submitted their written opinions or arguments. They would not have mounted a vengeful campaign.

I think the demonstrators owe it to themselves and their fellow students to explain their aberrant and crude behavior. Moral seriousness is very different from moral strutting. I sincerely hope that students here will continue to know the difference. RUTH R. WISSE   March 10, 1999

The writer is Professor of Yiddish Literature and Comparative Literature.