As students of Harvard University, and as Black students in a white environment, we join with all other members of the Harvard community in deploring and condemning acts if brutality perpetrated by the Administration against students in the University Hall demonstration. That certain students should feel that the only way to insure getting the Administration's attention is to occupy a building is less surprising than the Administration's response that the only way to negotiate with these students was through the good offices of our local storm troops.

We think we owe due recognition to the strength of moral convictions and courage of those students participating in the demonstration. They could into question the morality of the decision-making process of this Administration. The tactics employed by the Administration in ending the occupation were a clear indication of the brutal and insensible use of power upon which that morality is founded. In a WBZ-TV interview April 10, Mayor Sullivan of Cambridge stated, in response to a question as to what restraints the Administration put on police it called together, that the Administration did not place any restrictions on the police. It was entirely a police show. This says much about the "sincerity" and concern of the Administration for students and the University community.

The past several years have demonstrated that Harvard's Administrators have been most effective in co-opting students--among the most effective in the world. Whenever a substantive issue has been raised by students, the Administration as skillfully projected the image of giving in to the dissenter's demands, while in reality making no substantive changes. The history of Black student efforts to effect significant academic and social changes are a case in point. In the past year Black students have negotiated in good faith with the University about a series of Black demands. The results have been anything but acceptable. The Afro-American Studies program, as now conceived by the University, even if it were to be temporary, is so far from what Black students envisioned such a program to be, as to be no program on Afro-American Studies at all.

Afro-American Studies is a serious and valid intellectual discipline which has long been and must no longer be neglected by Harvard. Black students seek a field of concentration which will provide knowledge, relevance and the tools for scholarly research of the Afro-American experience. This requires a department which as the power to establish its own criteria for curriculum and generate its own courses.

We therefore demand that the Standing Committee be stripped of its powers immediately. This committee will be replaced by a temporary governing board. Half of the membership of this board will be elected by potential concentrators in the field through caucus. All official discussion of requirements and curriculum for concentrators will besuspended until such time as the head of the department and the temporary governing board meet to determine such requirements.

(In response of bitter student objection, the Standing Committee worked quickly to revise its concentration plan. After a late meeting on April 13, the Standing Committee issued a completely revamped concentration plan, which made Afro-American Studies a combined major, like History and Literature or Social Studies.)

TENTATIVE PROPOSAL FOR CONCENTRATION IN AFRO-AMERICAN STUDIES

TO ALL PROSPECTIVE MAJORS:

This proposal is intended to be a guide for all students considering a degree program in Afro-American Studies. We have not yet had an opportunity to discuss the proposal fully with students and faculty members. Therefore, it is subject to revision. Furthermore, the university has not yet made the first two senior appointments in Afro-American Studies. These are anticipated shortly. Obviously the views of the incoming chairman will be important in shaping the concentration.

The challenge we face is the com- mitment to offer a program of study for the class of 1972. In the short time available, we are working hard to develop new courses and bring competent specialists to the university. Necessarily, during the coming academic year, the number of courses will be limited and the number of specialists will not be large. But we would like to stress that the committee fully recognizes its responsibility to remedy both of these situations as soon as possible.

We strongly urge other departments to enrich their offerings in this field as well as to invite additional outside specialists so that by the time the class of 1972 graduates, Harvard will have provided them with a strong and relevant course of study. This goal will require the active effort and involvement of all concerned: students, faculty, and administration.

PROPOSAL FOR AFRO-AMERICAN STUDIES

I. BASIC REQUIREMENTS: 7 courses, including AAS 90 (sophomore colloquium) AAS 98 (junior tutorial). For present upperclassmen, the current practices with regard to entering a different field will apply here.

II. SPECIAL FIELDS: Students must choose one of the following special fields:

a. Problems and Contexts of Afro-American History and Culture