[Following is the complete text of the program drawn up by the 30-member Teaching Fellows Committee for Radical Structural Reform.]
Harvard University exercises immense power affecting both its own members and the large community in which it resides. This power had not been used responsibility have refused to accept responsibility for this misuse.
Recent events have raised particular issues of such importance that business at Harvard must not return to normal until we begin to deal with these issues in a fundamental and permanent way. We recognize the importance of the specific demands which have been made. Striking for these demands alone will not guarantee that Harvard face up to its obligations in the future, for they arose from the deeper problem that the organization of the University does not reflect the needs of those it effects. A change in the structure of the University can guarantee that Harvard's power will serve and not destroy.
In the behalf that further strike activity should be concerned with clear issues, we proposes the following:
ROTC
The Harvard community is divided over the presence of ROTC at the University. ROTC is maintained at Harvard by a contract between the Corporation and the Department of Defense. That contract has been challenged on various grounds: because it implicates the University in the Viet Nam war and present American foreign policy, and because that contract subverts the spirit of liberal a status unlike that of any other off-education. We wish to focus on the contract, which has infested ROTC with campus or non-curricular activity. The termination of that contract violates no one's civil liberties.
We therefore demand that :
1. The Corporation immediately terminate its contractual obligations with the Department of Defense, regarding ROTC, and commit itself not to negotiate any new contracts of any kind, regarding ROTC.
2. The University replace any scholarship aid lost to Harvard students as a result of the termination of the contract.
EXPANSION
The development of Harvard has had an unacceptably disruptive impact on the surrounding community. By its nature Harvard attracts to Cambridge many individuals and industries. Through the operation of supply and demand, this continuing influx has resulted in a severe housing shortage and a dramatic rise in rents. The University's failure to construct more housing has seriously exacerbated the situation. More importantly, it is also clear that Harvard's expansion policies have caused genuine hardships for the community. The fact that some individuals have benefited from this process in no way relieve Harvard of its obligations toward those who are hurt.
Harvard must commit itself to the principles of preserving Cambridge as a heterogeneous community, of maintaining adequate housing and health standards, and of making no profits on its housing. Only through such profound structural changes in the process by which such decisions are reached can we hope to achieve a more responsible policy.
We therefore demand that:
1. No further physical expansion of Harvard take place until the views of the surrounding community are represented in the decision-making process.
2. The Corporation not demolish nor transfer title to an agency which will demolish the University Road apartments and the housing on the Harvard Affiliated Hospital site until all residents have been relocated to their satisfaction at Harvard's expense.
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