Though HUC members wanted to make sure that their resolution was on the docket, primarily as an effort to establish a precedent of regular Faculty consideration of such student resolutions, they also wanted to form a united front of student government groups favoring the withdrawal of credit. With this end in mind, HUC members appeared before SFAC in late October.

As the SFAC meetings continued into November, rumblings against ROTC began in two new areas--the CEP and the HRPC.

The CEP--the group that advises the Faculty on matters of academic policy--began its hearings on ROTC soon after SFAC did. HUC members realized the potential that the CEP offered: it was another channel to Faculty consideration, and if the CEP recommended with-drawing credit, the motion would stand a good chance of Faculty approval. But no immediate action was imminent from the CEP. As SFAC continued its debates--hearing first from HUC members, and then from ROTC students--the CEP quietly heard its own student testimony without announcing any conclusions.

HRPC Steps In

The next concrete steps came from the HRPC. After an audit of ROTC courses, the HRPC published a report on Nov. 17 calling for the end of ROTC's academic status. But while the HRPC report was similar to the HUC's in its conclusion--and in its lack of legal effect--it offered a far different basis for the attack on ROTC.

The HUC had claimed that ROTC courses didnt meet Harvard's standard academic criteria; because of their flabby content, the report said, the courses should be eliminated. But the HUC report--though not the HUC resolution--also said that the courses might reapply for credit if they changed their curricula. This loophole, was often overlooked in the subsequent debates over academic credit, but the CEP took up the notion several months later, using it as the basis for its recommendation.

The HRPC, however, didn't offer ROTC the same re-application option. The problem with ROTC, their report said, was that all the courses were externally controlled. Since Harvard lacked the same institutional control of ROTC courses that it demanded of all other academic courses--and since ROTC courses were avowedly pre-professional disciplines aimed at producing officers--the HRPC said that ROTC courses should be removed from the liberal arts curriculum at Harvard.

The differences between the HRPC and HUC position were blurred as both proposals moved into the SFAC. As the ROTC issue dragged on from one weekly SFAC meeting to the next, SFAC members decided to consider three new proposals: to get rid of ROTC altogether, to deny it credit, and to deny credit to all "non-academic courses"--including not only ROTC but also courses like Soc Rel 148.

Near the end of November, the SFAC considered the first of these proposals--total expulsion of ROTC. That motion was easily beaten down, and the focus of action shifted now to the SDS.

Throughout the fall, SDS had been circulating petitions and holding meetings on ROTC. Its position was clear: for moral and political reason, Harvard should refuse to allow ROTC on its campus. But SDS too lacked any formal vehicle to put its proposals before the Faculty. Then, on Nov. 20, SDS pulled a surprise move. As it became clear that the Faculty would consider some ROTC proposals in December, SDS announced that Hilary Putnam would present its case for total expulsion.

YPSL Referendum

SDS's tactic was quickly imitated by another group, the Young People's Socialist League (YPSL). Claiming that the SDS petition "violated the civil liberties" of the students who wanted to participate in ROTC, the YPSL members proposed a student referendum on whether ROTC courses should have credit. The referendum would not be binding on the Faculty, and its alternatives would not include the SDS demand to expel ROTC. Like SDS, YPSL got a Faculty member to present its proposal at the Faculty meeting; Seymour Martin Lipset, professor of Government, revealed it would have a place on the Dec. 3 docket.

One week before the scheduled Dec. 3 Faculty meeting, the SFAC finally held a vote. By a vote of 13 to 3, it passed the resolution that Albritton will present Tuesday. An amalgam of the HUC and HRPC plans, the SFAC resolution offers five steps for ending ROTC's academic status:

* denying academic credit to ROTC courses,

* removing appointments from the instructors,