"Yes." May said.

Hausler, the student member of the fact-finding panel, said later that the crucial word was impede: Did the shouting impede May?

"I would agree," Margolin said, "it made it more difficult for him to be heard."

Heimert called the treatment which the students had accorded May "inhuman." He asked whether Margolin meant by previous statements that "by being a public figure, by being dean of Harvard College, he [May] automatically can expect to be harassed."

Margolin said, "He should expect to be personally harassed, I guess, in the same way we're being harassed by cops."

May said later that if the demonstrators had not been present he would have rejoined the Subcommittee of Six in an undisclosed building. "I had no desire to lead my pursuers to that group," he said.

Margolin pressed May to explain just what the psychological harassment had been like.

"It was a little like being surrounded by dogs that are barking at you and baring their teeth." May said. After a long pause, Margolin said "Thank you." Then Heimert asked May to describe the nature of what Heimert called the demonstrators' "implicit threat."

"There is no way to describe it to any one who hasn't experienced it," May said. "I have a friend in Japan who was hospitalized two months-he was surrounded and shouted at until he collapsed."

"Do you think we were trying to make you faint?" Margolin asked him.

"I saw no reason to suppose you were going to desist," May said. "I was delighted and surprised when the pursuit ceased."

Margolin called May's fears "paranoid" and asked that his charges be dismissed. "We're being charged with being nasty," he said.

The charges were not dismissed.

"What do you think your reaction would be?" May asked Margolin. The shouting, he said, was "mindless," "hostile," and "called for no response."

"If I had been you," Margolin said, "I would've turned around, apologized, and quit my job."

There were a few minutes more of discussion, but Wilson soon cut it off. Porte seemed to speak for everyone when he said, "I've heard enough." Wilson told Margolin the fact-finding panel would report to the full committee, and that the committee would tell Margolin its decision.