To the Editors of The Crimson:

It is unfortunate that many undergraduates seem to share, at least to some degree, David Graham's opinion ["Dissenting Opinion," February 11] as to how the disciplinary process should be carried on at this University. The reforms recently undertaken by the Administrative Board are, as he does point out, a beginning, and more certainly needs to be done; however Mr. Graham's contention that cross-examination is not a desirable further reform displays a fundamental misperception of how the concept of justice relates to the Harvard community. The idea of justice is an essential component of any society, whatever its size; the premise behind most current criticism of the procedures of the Administrative Board, and those of the Committee on Rights and Responsibilities as well, is that these procedures do not in any sense represent or uphold the American (and I think most will agree when I say in large part accurate) concept of a just resolution of conflicts and rule-breaking.

The point of all this, against Mr. Graham, is that there is a concept of what constitutes justice and what does not, and that this concept applies across the board, wholly independently of the size of the community to which it is applied. To say that cross-examination should not be a procedure for the Ad Board on the basis of the nasty looks and comments witnesses against the accused will later receive is equivalent (although in a much smaller scale) to saying that democracy should be dispensed with because it is inefficient.

The essential problem with Mr. Graham's argument is that he feels such matters of expediency and pleasantry should outweigh considerations of justice. formalized procedures may indeed create problems, and they may seed an unnecessary burden to administrators and faculty members who claim that they are already pressed for time. In truth, however, thing are the other way around, and expediency must give way to justice.

In the end, it must be said that the Ad Board's procedures have been shrouded in vagueness for so long, and been so tainted by secrecy and a reliance on the never-assured goodwill of Senior Tutors and other administrators, that any reform is welcome, and the more better. However, we as students must never believe that we have achieved "enough" justice, or that to achieve more would be to achieve "too much"--it has taken decades to get this far, and the administration has shown more than once that it is completely willing to let the matter rest right where it is if we do not keep the issue alive and on their minds.