Steiner asked Cambridge police not to stay in the Yard so that no attempt to storm the building could be made without University approval--if the protesters disregarded a court order to leave, their being in contempt of court could require any Cambridge officers at the scene to arrest them.
Throughout the occupation, Bok, Steiner and other officials followed a policy of holding, but not exercising, a legal right to use police to remove the protesters by force.
"We are deliberately taking every step possible to protect both the University and the people in the building. We don't want anyone hurt," said Charles U. Daly, vice president for government and community Affairs.
That night, a meeting of 2,000 students in Sanders Theatre voted for a five-day strike in support of PALC and against the Vietnam War.
Attendance fell to about 25 percent at classes the next day.
Other signs of support for the protesters came from round-the-clock picketing outside; the black Faculty and administrators; Phillips Brooks House Association; 38 Faculty members who signed a statement calling investment in Gulf "morally indefensible"; and six black members of the track team who left the squad indefinitely, issuing a statement supporting the "efforts to influence the end of imperialism, exploitation and political repression."
On the third day of the siege, Ewart Guinier, chair of the Afro-American studies department, donated $500 to the protesters.
Occupants declared an indefinite hunger strike on the fourth day.
In a letter on April 25, Steiner asked for the occupation to end and warned that, "Unless there is immediate compliance, we will be obliged to ask for a court order."
He combined this threat of physical eviction with warnings that the Committee on Rights and Responsibilities--the University's disciplinary arm--could punish occupants.
A rally outside of Mass. Hall on April 26 attracted nearly 1,000 supporters and concluded with a surprise announcement from inside the hall.
"This is the seventh day of our occupation," the speaker said. "We have decided to make it our last."
After citing University plans to have protesters found in contempt of court, the speaker continued, "We would face six-month jail sentences that would remove us from the struggle. The issue is Harvard out of Gulf and not Mass. Hall. Join us."
The PALC and Afro protesters marched out of the hall, their fists thrust upward in a proud, but less-than-victorious, end to the building occupation. They and the cheering supporters paraded through Holyoke Center and down Mt. Auburn Street.
Whether or not it was influenced by the recent events, the Corporation voted in favor of two disclosure resolutions filed with the General Motors Corp. and the Ford Motor Co. The University had never before sided against management in a proxy fight.
Thirty-four students were eventually brought before University disciplinary bodies for participating in the strike. None received punishments that had any effect more serious than a permanent disciplinary record.
Bok commented that "a number of problems" had arisen because of the mildness of the punishments, but he stopped short of explicitly condemning the rulings.