President Announces Sit-In Policy

Ten months after students occupied Mass. Hall, University administrators will release a statement today calling for stricter and more consistent punishment of participants in any future takeovers of University buildings.

The announcement comes both as an official “interpretation” of the University’s policy on acceptable forms of protest and as a statement from University President Lawrence H. Summers and deans of all Harvard’s 11 schools.

The interpretation of the “University-Wide Statement of Rights and Responsibilities”—added recently by the University’s governing boards—makes explicit that unauthorized occupations of University buildings disruptive to Harvard’s normal activity are unacceptable. The original policy was adopted as a result of the 1969 takeover of University Hall.

While obstruction of University activity was already prohibited by the policy, Summers and the deans said in their statement that they wished to highlight the policy’s applicability to participants in unauthorized occupations.

Summers and the deans’ statement also went a step farther than the interpretation by recommending that students who cause a disruption while occupying buildings—regardless of Harvard affiliation—should be suspended.

No students involved in last spring’s sit-in received such punishments. College students involved in the occupation received three weeks of disciplinary probation. Law Students were officially reprimanded. Kennedy School of Government students involved received no disciplinary action.

Dean of the College Harry R. Lewis ’68 said today’s action should not be seen as rejecting the punishment last year’s demonstrators received.

“The [College’s Administrative] Board judges every case on its own, and clearly the situation last spring was unique in many ways because of decisions taken by the students and decisions taken by the president’s office,” Lewis wrote in an e-mail.

“With a new president in place, I think it makes sense for him to signal how he views the possibility of a similar disruption, and this statement does so,” he said.

Summers and the deans stated that discipline would remain in the hands of the faculties of the individual schools, despite the appearance of a centrally mandated punishment.

University General Counsel Anne Taylor said in an interview last night that the reference to suspensions was only “advisory” in nature.

But another University official said the statement and interpretation were intended to signal that occupations of the type that occurred last spring should be met with more severe disciplinary actions.

The interpretation and accompanying statement come after months of discussion between deans and Summers. A University official said the only significant opposition among the deans came from those who felt that penalties should be stricter and more explicit than those suggested in the final statement.

The Faculty of Arts and Sciences’ Faculty Council was also consulted.

But the move came without any consultation of undergraduates.

“The process here is outrageous,” said Benjamin L. McKean ’02, who participated in the sit-in last spring. “It’s outrageous that they wouldn’t involve the whole community in some sort of consultative process.”

—Staff writer David H. Gellis can be reached at gellis@fas.harvard.edu