Although "the people at the Graduate School of Education seemed to understand what it was all about," at other schools where she applied the admissions officers were suspicious. "They would look at it and think I torched a dorm."

Harvard v. Jonathan M. Harris '69

By the time Jonathan M. Harris '69 took a dean by the arm and led him to the door of University Hall, he was already prominent in SDS and "high on the Committee of Fifteen's hit list," in his words. The committee assigned Harris, along with 15 other students present that day, the penalty of "separation from the University." The punishment denied him a degree only a few days before Commencement.

But Harris had no intention of departing the Yard so swiftly, and he got a job that summer as a porter carrying luggage for summer school students. An administrator caught sight of him, and reported him to the Committee of Fifteen.

Soon after Harris received an admonitory letter on the Committee of Fifteen letterhead, advising him, "We have been informed that you have already disregarded that notice, which information, if confirmed, jeopardizes your prospects for readmission."

Out of a job carting suitcases, Harris was soon drafted and out at Fort Hood, Texas, 123rd Maintenance Battalion. After two years with a clean record in the Army, his company commander agreed to write him a letter of recommendation, vouching for his character and suggesting that the CRR grant him his degree.

While the CRR scrutinized his army record, Harris returned to Cambridge. His senior tutor took him aside and advised him to apologize to the committee so it would grant his request. "He tried to persuade me basically to crawl," Harris says. He refused.

In December 1970, Harris received another letter, this one from Donald G. Anderson, McKay Professor of Applied Mathematics, then CRR chairman, notifying him that he would receive his B.A. degree, but spelling out that "such permission would be granted on the understanding that you do not wish to return to Harvard, but simply wish to be returned to good standing in order that you may apply for the A.B. degree."

From what Harris could make out, the CRR seemed to operate on two levels. On the surface, Harris says, it simply matched the penalty with the offense. But beneath that, the CRR--or rather the administration behind it--seemed to single out the recognized SDS leaders. Of the 400 demonstrators in University Hall, they alone got slapped with the dismissals and suspensions. "In theory," Harris says, "you had broken a rule and therefore had to be expelled. But in practice, they didn't care about the rules."

By including a few more liberal-minded Faculty members on CRR--Harris points to Stanley Hoffmann, professor of Government--the CRR seemed to represent a broader spectrum of opinion in the community than it actually did. "The self-styled liberals gave the cover of legitimacy to a McCarthy-style political repression," Harris says.

Harvard v. John T. Berlow '71

John T. Berlow has a "71" after his name in the alumni directory, but he never did get his degree. After carrying James Thomas, former dean of freshmen, out the doors of University Hall, Berlow was promptly dismissed by the Committee of Fifteen. His removal of the dean was "totally non-violent," he says--unlike his own eviction from the building at the hands of state troopers--but the administration was taking no chances on Berlow. When he applied for readmission two years later, permission to return was denied.

For a while Berlow worked in a factory, drove a truck, and tried to convince Harvard that he should finish his undergraduate degree program. Giving up, finally, he finished his B.A. at Boston University, switching from his Harvard concentration--political science--to music. He now works in an MIT laboratory, developing computer systems for children.

But the news that Harvard students might break the CRR boycott hurts. "It's a slap in the face to all of us who fought something that we thought was important," he says.

Berlow never considered appearing before the Committee of Fifteen when he was summoned: "The position of most students at the time was that they were out to get us." Because he did not attend his hearing, Berlow knows little of the committee's internal proceedings. He and other students did, however, know by word-of-mouth the names of those who presented testimony against them. Deans were not the only ones. "A number of students were known to be informants," Berlow says.