After attracting nationwide attention, voters defeated a controversial referendum which would have allowed the alleged victims of pornography to sue the makers and distributors of obscene material. While a ban on nerve gas testing in the city was upheld, Cambridge residents were split on whether Harvard should be permitted to continue its preferential house sales to faculty members.

Even before inauguration day, the nine city councilors decided to make 26-year veteran Walter J. Sullivan Cambridge's mayor for the next two years.

CRR REACHES DECISIONS

After months of deliberation and more than 60 hours of testimony, the Committee on Rights and Responsibilities (CRR) placed 10 students on probation in October for blockading a South African diplomat in the Lowell House Junior Common Room last spring. The body also admonished 11 students for their peaceful sit-in at the 17 Quincy St. headquarters of Harvard's Governing Boards.

A voluminous report of the way the CRR viewed both incidents disclosed that police acted without University approval in forming "a human battering ram" to free the diplomat from the JCR. In response to student complaints that the police used excessive force at the demonstration, an investigative body found that, with one exception, the police did not act improperly in the confusing scene at Lowell House.

Almost all anti-apartheid activity on campus quieted down following the CRR's decision.

HOUSING LOTTO CHANGED

The College decided to revolutionize the freshman housing lottery when it decided in December to reveal lottery numbers to the anxious Yardlings before they must select their upperclass houses.

In previous years freshmen picked the top three houses they wanted to live in and then received their assignments just before spring break. Under the new system, freshmen will learn their lottery numbers shortly before they submit their choices.

While the revelation is not expected to aid the students holding top numbers, the information should help those with middle numbers who might choose less popular houses, and those at the bottom who might take the Quad more seriously.

LEGAL SKIRMISHES

The ideological and political struggle over Critical Legal Studies continued at the Law School as six tenured professors, mostly conservatives, were said to be considering faculty appointments at other schools.

Responding to the major rift in the law faculty, President Bok and Law School Dean James Vorenberg '49 said they are ready to intervene in the traditionally democratic but embattled school's tenure process.

EDUCATION AID SLASHED

The Gramm-Rudman bill, an initiative backed by Congressional Republicans, became a law in December requiring automatic spending cuts in most government programs unless the budget deficit is reduced by a specified amount each year and mandating a balanced budget by 1991.