Pusey, Ford, and Glimp on the Dow Protest

(The following are excerpts from the press conference held by President Pusey, Dean Glimp and Dean Ford after Tuesday's faculty meeting. The transcript of the conference was provided through the courtesy of WHRB.)

GLIMP: The motion we placed before the Faculty was that the Faculty endorse the actions taken by the Administrative Board today.... The Administrative Board had considered 246 cases of individual students involved in the physical obstruction of Dr. Leavitt in the Mallinckrodt Laboratory.

The action came out in these numbers: Seventy-one students were placed on probation until June 1, 1968 for disciplinary reasons, for contributing to the forceful obstruction of an individual. Three students were placed on probation until February 1, 1968 for disciplinary reasons for presence at a disturbance in connection with the forceful obstruction of an individual. There were in each of these three cases very strong special circumstances or mitigating involvement or attitudes. One hundred and seventy-one students were admonished for disciplinary reasons for misuse of a student identification card in connection with the forceful obstruction of an individual. In one case we took no action.

QUESTION: Dean Glimp, could you explain what admonished means?

GLIMP: Admonishment is a form of official disciplinary action on the part of the Administrative Board, less severe than probation. And what was involved with the fellows who were admonished in this instance was a variety of things. All of them had handed in their student identification cards in sympathy with the sit-in. Some of them never even knew what was going on in the Mallinckrodt Laboratory, had no idea that force was being used against an individual. Some of them were in fact picketing outside in an orderly way, which is one of the ways we hope students will express their dissent.

Some of them perhaps, but we weren't going to take action unless we knew for sure that a student was involved in the forcible obstruction of Dr. Leavitt, some of them may have been in the area of the hallway where he was prevented from leaving the room....

QUESTION: Has Harvard's policy changed or is this warning for future demonstrations?

PUSEY: I don't quite understand the thrust of the question. The policy hasn't changed. The students are free to demonstrate in an orderly fashion. The only issue is the use of force.

QUESTION: How will these students know when they have reached that point?

PUSEY: Well, I guess somebody, what was the story they said, when somebody's fists hits the other fellow's face, why that's force, I guess. Now we're not talking about fists and faces but I think there comes a time when the line between no force and force vanishes.

QUESTION: President Pusey, these students right after the demonstration gave a list of demands themselves to the University: No CIA recruiters should be allowed to come in; no Dow Cemical....

PUSEY: (interrupting) Well, that, from our point of view, that's simply a non-document. It has no status at all....

QUESTION: President Pusey, is it possible that the Harvard policy with regard to recruitment on campus will be reviewed?

PUSEY: Well, let me state something else and leave some of this to the Deans. In the Faculty Meeting, I would say no one, there were no speeches urging a more severe penalty. There were a good many speeches urging a milder or really no penalty at all, but simply a kind of warning. The action of the Administrative Board was supported by at least five to one of the people present.

After that action was taken there were several moving speeches about the difficulty, let's say, or the breach that has come between students and Faculty and lamenting that there was so much misunderstanding and a hope that we could find ways to talk more patiently at greater length to reach some basic understanding about what are really involved in issues of this kind.

I think it's not only likely, almost certain that we will now try to set up a committee of students and faculty where they can discuss a good many of the regulations that exist in a University and possible changes in them. And I know that there are students who are going to raise questions about the rights, privileges, of outside agencies, public and private, who come here to talk with students. We have always assumed that providing places for such interviews was in the best interests of our students. I personally am persuaded that that is true. And I think it very unlikely that there will be any significant change in that. But certainly there is this matter and other matters that can be discussed and should be discussed. So the students and faculty are speaking the same language.

QUESTION: Were there any speeches in that meeting, President Pusey, to expell any of these students.

PUSEY: No...

FORD: No, I think it's fair to repeat what President Pusey said, that there was no speech favoring more severe action than the one that was taken. Although it's also fair to say that over the last few days some members of the Faculty have privately expressed themselves as favoring more severe action. Where we ended up was really not with a compromise between two extremes expressed this afternoon, but with a considered recommendation of the Administrative Board that this action was sufficient to have real deterrent effect and yet did take account of some of the confusions of the students involved, not just sincerity, but the difficulty in judging the moment when they were crossing the line from dissent into quite unacceptable use of force.

And I ought to emphasize that from the Faculty's point of view probation is a serious penalty. A student on probation can't represent the College publicly on any athletic team, any dramatic program, musical program, anything of that sort, cannot be an officer in an organization, is subject to immediate closing of probation, which is severance, either for academic or disciplinary reasons during that period. In other words, this is not what I would call mild action. But it was certainly not in the faculty's view over-reacting or Draconian.

QUESTION: President Pusey, will stiffer disciplinary action be taken if there is a recurrence of this type of demonstration?

PUSEY: Well, I think the implication is clearly that this Faculty and this community has said that the use of force is unacceptable. I think that's what it said.

QUESTION: Then you don't consider this a slap on the wrist.

PUSEY: No, I don't

QUESTION: Dean Ford, President Pusey stated the only issue is the use of force. Do you think that the faculty agrees with that and also do you think the Faculty can take up the question of whether Harvard is involved in the War in Vietnam?

FORD: It seems to me very unlikely that the Faculty is going to take up a question which is not a real question at all. Harvard is involved in the War in Vietnam like any other agency or organization of the American people. As an official participant in the war, it is of course not involved at all. The Faculty did agree on the specific incident under consideration, and the overbearing question had to be the use of force. After having supported the board and in effect denouncing that, it went on to discuss other issues, including what has in fact been developing anyway for a long time: more consultation, more Faculty-student dialogue, and agreed to look into the institution of a committee which might have been started a week earlier except we couldn't very well change our machinery in the middle of the crisis.

QUESTION: Dr. Pusey, what avenue of appeals are openu to students if they wish to contest this decision?

PUSEY: Well, the Dean of the College will have to reply to that.

GLIMP: Students who wish to appeal for reconsideration of the decision will contact their senior tutors in their Houses who are sort of deans of students in each House, also Faculty members. And if they have new evidence to bring to bear on his case the Administrative Board will reconsider the decision.

QUESTION: The decision is supposed to go into effect as of what date?

GLIMP: As of now.

QUESTION: You said there was some talk of severance for some of the student leaders involved. Can you tell us what arguments were used in the Administrative Board aganist that.

GLIMP: Well, as has been indicated, I think the first point the Administrative Board felt very strongly about is the difference between dissent and even vigorous dissent and use of force on another individual. That was the basic feeling. As we began to try to figure out what action might be appropriate, it seemed to us that it was important to weigh the educational considerations, gains that might accrue from moderate but severe action. I suppose in a sense we were saying we'd like to keep the students here and talk to them some more.

QUESTION: Are there any football players or members of any other athletic teams involved?

GLIMP: We weren't concentrating on that aspect of each individual case so I have to say I don't know. I did notice the name of one student but I'd rather not mention it here. We didn't ever deal with it or mention it....

QUESTION: (interrupting) Was it a football player, Dean?

FORD: We wouldn't talk about individual cases.

GLIMP: We don't want to talk about individual cases.

QUESTION: There have been statements that if disciplinary action is taken there will be demonstrations. If there are demonstrations, how will you deal with them, Sir?

PUSEY: Well, we'll cross that bridge when we get there. I think maybe Dean Ford could comment more about this. Possible, or not possible student reaction--that's kind of idle guessing--but reactions that have been demonstrated these last several days.

I have personally lived in College communities a long while, and am very very hesitant to ever say that this is what the students think. If there is one thing I have known there's much more variety in the student body than