December 11: In the face of SDS threats to sit-in at the Faculty's Paine Hall meeting, Dean Glimp said that the Faculty would cancel the meeting rather than attempt a showdown with the demonstrators. Glimp said that the doors of Paine Hall would not be locked to keep students from arriving before the Faculty, but he said that any such sit-in would be "a very serious offense."
Winthrop House said that some of the black performers at its upcoming Arts Festival might speak to all-black student gatherings at Harvard, but House Master Bruce Chalmers said that the House would not formerly sponsor such segregated events.
The Southern Courier, an Alabama-based civil rights newspaper founded by Harvard graduates, put out its last issue. The paper's editor, Michael Lottman '62, said that chronic debt and dwindling effectiveness convinced him to shut down the Courier.
December 12: The Faculty's special meeting on ROTC was cancelled when more than 100 student demonstrators refused to leave Paine Hall, the planned site of the Faculty meeting. Dean Glimp told an open meeting of students in the hall that they would have to leave by 2:30 p.m., warning that their presence after then would be regarded as a serious disruption of Faculty business. The students voted 115 to 81 to stay, and 132 said they would sit in the building. University police collected bursar's cards at 3 p.m., and Glimp called off the meeting.
December 13: The HUC sponsored a special forum on the Paine Hall sitin. SDS members blamed the Administration for its inflexibility, while Faculty members and administrators pleaded for "rational discussion" and denounced "groups that think they own the truth."
At the Law School, 20 students demonstrated outside the placement office while recruiters from a New York law firm talked with students inside. The demonstrators said the firm--Milban, Tweed, Hadley, and McCoy--helped oppress black people in South Africa by representing Chase Manhattan Bank, which has investments in South African industry.
December 15: Nearly 100 of the students who sat in at Paine Hall met to discuss new tactics. They decided to concentrate their efforts to winning support for anti-ROTC demands They also charged that any punishment for the sit-in would be political oppression, since "the Administration kept us out of the meeting because they want to keep ROTC." Several of the Houses conducted forums to discuss ROTC, to sit-in, and punishment for the demonstrators.
The Harvard-Radcliffe Policy Committee released the results of a poll showing that undergraduates overwhelmingly favored co-ed living experiments. More than 90 per cent of Harvard and Radcliffe students said they would like the University to set up optional co-ed dorms.
The Urgency of co-ed living was emphasized by the death of the Harvard-Radcliffe bus. Meager patronage made the bus lose about $30 a night, and Harvard administrators said they would not continue the costly experiment.
December 16: Black students at Radcliffe presented Mrs. Bunting with another demand, this one for a "veto power" in Radcliffe's selection of a black admissions officer.
The Harvard-Radcliffe Policy Committee began working on a intersession symposium to discuss Harvard's governing system. Organizers of the symposium said they hoped it would produce recommendations for revamping the overlapping systems of student organizations.
The Administration ran into another Federal funding problem. The National Science Foundation turned down Harvard's request to restore some of the money cut out of the 1969 NSF budget. Harvard said the money was necessary to maintain "a liveable level of project research."
December 17: The SFAC met for the first time since the Paine Hall sit-in and passed a motion asking for leniency for the demonstrators. Oscar Handlin walked out of the SFAC meeting after his resolution calling for stricter punishment was defeated.
The Administrative Board--which has responsibility for punishing the students--postponed any action until after Christmas vacation. Dean Glimp said that the board wanted to spend more time finding out what had happened.
December 18: Dean Ford said that the Faculty would take up its interrupted ROTC deliberations at a special meeting on January 21. Before that, however, the Faculty would consider punishment for the demonstrators. Ford scheduled another special meeting for January 14, when the Ad Board would present its punishment proposals and the Faculty would vote to accept or alter them.
