THE TRIALS themselves are as "intimidating" as anything Dean May felt in the nasty November 19 demonstration. They are closed meetings, where only witnesses and one person for counsel are permitted. Three policemen escort each of the defendants through four sets of locked doors on the way to the trial. Each set of doors is carefully unlocked in front and then locked behind the defendant before the next set is opened. No press is allowed, even if the defendant asks for his testimony to be made public. Virtually all those charged in the political demonstrations of the past year have asked that the trials be open. The Bill of Rights guarantees "a speedy and public trial, before an impartial jury" in all civil trials, but apparently the Harvard Faculty which approved the Code on Rights and Responsibilities and the by-laws of the present committee did not feel that such safeguards were needed at Harvard.
Even if the proceedings were made public, they would continue to violate the impartial jury clause of the Bill of Rights. The Committee consists of three students, three Faculty members, and three representatives of the Administration. The last three are payed by the Corporation to handle the business affairs of the University.
The Faculty members of the Committee were elected to the Committee of Fifteen last Spring. One of these men-all are men-told Miss Slavin who was attempting to present her defense by applying the Code to the Corporation's responsibilities, "I wrote that section of the Code; I know what it means. Your interpretation is not what I meant." It is an interesting separation of powers between legislator and judge which governs Harvard discipline. Another of the Faculty representatives told one CRIMSON reporter recently he would always accept the story of a dean about an incident when choosing between the dean's testimony and an SDS member's testimony. "The SDS member would bend the truth to serve his political ends," he said. This jury is far from impartial.
As for the student members, it must be remembered that the Code of Rights and Responsibilities and the Committee were established after a onehour discussion in the Faculty meeting when few students were on campus last June. There was no consultation with the student body-no attempt to move through all the "democratic channels" in the community. The three student representatives were chosen by those students who were selected from the lottery of those elected from the Houses last April. These hastily conducted elections barred students involved in the University Hall turmoil and permitted no statement of qualifications or political views. They were, as the CRIMSON pointed out at the time, elections in name only. The students were denied any grounds for choice. The three students on the Committee now represent what can only be considered the ultimate in indirect non-election. Unfortunately, it would make little difference if the students were elected by a direct election next week, for a majority, three administrators and two Faculty members, is enough to convict and sentence on the Committee.
Appeals can only be made to the Committee itself. These appeals can, and have, been summarily dismissed. The joint appeal of the November 19 demonstrators was dismissed the day it was made because of "insufficient grounds" for appeal. The appeals system reinforces the Commtitce's procedural injustices. Without any system of review, the Committee's closed and "secret" deliberations are relatively insulated from criticism.
THE PUNISHMENTS are as objectionable as the supposedly democratic procedures behind the Committee. Students who are suspended must prove that they have left the "Harvard community" for the entire period before they are readmitted. The "community" has been liberally defined; one Harvard student suspended last Spring for a semester has not been readmitted because he has remained in the Harvard "community." He is living in Boston and organizing for SDS at Northeastern.
Those who deny political repression at Harvard should ask themselves why students engaged in local radical activity should be denied readmission when their formal term of suspension ends. Why are these students never to be permitted to speak on campus without "formally" being readmitted? Is it not curious that virtually all of the SDS leadership both from last Spring and this Fall have been suspended or dismissed? and that the leaders of the November Action Coalition at Harvard and OBU were charged a week before Christmas?
BY CREATING the illusion that the Committee of Fifteen was acting as an impartial jury, rather than a committee to punish those who had demonstrated against the Harvard Administration last Spring, the Faculty and its Committee were acting as agents of the Corporation. The Faculty and the Committee had accepted the Corporation's analysis of the actions-that students and Faculty had violated the rules of the community in the demonstrations. There was no procedure for charging, much less disciplining, these who called the police last Spring; and, there is no procedure for disciplining the Corporation for continuing its racist employment practices. The Committee on Rights and Responsibilities is perpetuating these injustices. Its racist, unconstitutional, and very partial character is not a coincidence but an unwitting reflection of the interests of the Administration.
Only when the Corporation can be suspended and criminally prosecuted for its racist policies, when it appears on campus, will it be possible to construct a legitimate disciplinary body for this community.