Suddenly, when the University is worried that things are getting out of hand, the CRR is "significant."
Fox has told the activists that they must take responsibility for their actions and present their names to the administration: "If they remain anonymous, you can't honor their opinions." But, in an institutional sense, the University is doing the same thing. By using a body that is responsible only to itself, the University manages to inflict punishment while refusing to accept responsibility. How can you honor their opinions?
Contrary to what many here would like to believe, the crucial issue has never been discipline. The student protesters--after their initial failure to produce their names at the April 24 sit-in at 17 Quincy St.--have consistently said they are willing face disciplinary action, even go to jail.
The students barricading the Lowell House Junior Common Room would undoubtedly have received more due process had they been arrested on the spot then they are likely to receive from a body that has virtually no experience in handling civil and uncivil disobedience. But the University did not have the guts to defend free speech at Harvard by arresting the students, just as police have arrested activists at colleges and South African consulates around the country.
The students who spent April 24 in the headquarters of Harvard Governing Boards would have been glad to accept whatever punishment the Ad Board could have handed down. But the University has not shown the same guts by accepting full and public responsibility for its response. Students at the sit-in directly asked Dean Fox if he would demand their bursar's cards. For declined.
THE ACTIVISTS, after several years of lassitude, have finally show a some backbone. Where are the conservatives and ever-indignant defenders of the Constitution?--hiding behind the CRR, a body that is inconsistent with principles of due process, principles the CRR was ostensibly created to uphold.
Liberals--and all who support the divestment movement--should oppose the CRR on ethical grounds. It is a kangaroo court that is brought our only when the student movement gets too successful and not, as stated in the Student Handbook, when violations of free speech occur. The CRR's history shows otherwise.
They should oppose the CRR because at allows the University to discipline students without responsibility and--because the body is supposed to include students--to pretend the discipline is a community censure when it is not.
Conservatives should oppose the CRR on the grounds that it is a pitiful parody of due process and a weak and arbitrary defense of free speech on campus. They should demand that the University uphold their right to free speech by arresting students who are in clear violation of the law. They should demand that the University show its backbone by administering discipline directly and not through an illegitimate child of a past age.
The arguments against the CRR swirl around and sometimes contradict each other. But in the absence of even a half-hearted philosophical (as opposed to procedural) defense of the continued existence of the CRR in the '80s, these criticisms strike to the heart of the University's insecurity about its own actions.
Discipline the students, or let them off the hook. But don't bog us down in your dirty work.