Knocking On the University's Door

WE ARE poised on the edge of a cliff of a crisis. We are becoming disillusioned with Politics. We always were; there was a slight resurgence with the Pentagon and with Dow, but here we are back again with our empty gestures, roaring absurdities, deep fears--the curling up and the running away. And here we are in our disillusionment facing the war and the draft now personally for the first time. And nothing is happening.

The second Dow demonstration was a mess. The great political issue was whether or not to push William Bentick-Smith out of the doorway he filled at Massachusetts Hall. Bentick-Smith was not doing anything unusual. Massachusetts Hall has been locked to undergraduates for 300 years. And even if they could get inside--even if this time they could have entered the sanctum of the Administration--they would not know what to do with themselves.

And so, on to University Hall--gray grooved blocks across the Yard. It was so much more comfortable. The Deans love you, and they welcome you, tell you where to sit (check your Bursar's card to make sure you are one of them). It was peaceful and chatty and comfortable. But even here, on our side of the Yard, no one knew quite what to do. Like the fast--if there are no demands, there is no purpose; if there is no purpose, nothing happens. So nothing happened.

AND WE ARE disillusioned. "Nothing works," you say. "The war goes on, and Harvard is pouring millions into the War Economy, and Harvard has all those ties with the Government. And we try, and, well, nothing happens, nothing works." But it is surprising. You never could move the U.S. Government. It's not much easier to move a 300-year-old corporation with a billion dollars in assets.

It is wrong to read too much significance into the target shift of the Left's offensive from the Government to the University. The overwhelming SDS vote to concentrate on Harvard meant mainly that it was a far easier and a far safer target for action at the time. If activists had been serious about moving against the University--and they should have been--plans would have been made longer in advance, the day for the Massachusetts Hall sit-in would have been the day of a corporation meeting, demands would have been set, real investigations into Harvard's finances would have been made. Since the beginning of the year, we have heard only empty threats of the apocalyptic exposure of complicity, passive grumblings about all that Harvard money in all those armament-makers' coffers (recently even the old red herring of Mississippi Power and Light).

THERE are legitimate issues here, and, at this crucial time in everyone's personal history, it is important to make them clear now and to act on them now. It is a fine thing to stir up moral indignation. Perhaps it will get those who care sufficiently upset to think seriously about avoiding service in this war. All the leadership -- wherever it is -- in the movement here has succeeded in doing is confusing people. At a time when solidarity as well as coherence is all-important, SDS, for all its highly-touted organizational abilities, still suffers from a kind of backlash prejudice, and its substantive activities this year have been far from spectacular.

Concentrating on the University is a good idea. But it seems that the best way to approach University involvement in the war is by attacking President Pusey's concept of Harvard as an institution. Pusey has said that as an institution Harvard should not try to effect social change. Its job is only to produce individuals who will effect social change. This is the basis for the myth of University neutrality.

Just because Harvard refuses to take stands as an institution does not mean that it is neutral. It has over $600 million invested in stocks, much of that in large corporations that benefit from the war. No one is asking the University to unload the stocks and buy something neutral, like Swiss Savings Bonds. But the first step is to force the University to realize that it is contributing to this war, whether it can help it or not.

THE FACT is that social realities, shaped by other institutions (not embarrassed to use their weight as institutions), are shaping the present and the future of Harvard University. But Harvard sits by, allows itself to be molded by the outside forces, because it believes in a kind of academic neutrality that keeps it away from the muddy waters of politics.

The war in Vietnam is simply not in Harvard's best interests (even though Harvard men have been among its chief architects). Financially, it hurts deeply. Research grants have been drastically cut. And the latest policy on the draft will serve to empty the graduate schools, drain them of tuition money, and send them begging. (On the other hand, of course, as the economy booms along on war profits, Harvard makes some extra money in the market.)

The war is hurting Harvard in other ways. It is disrupting the entire flow of education. Students are under the gun. The threat of the draft has nearly freaked out the senior class: theses have been dropped, grades have gone down, extensions on papers have multiplied. "There are people here who should be on leave of absence, who should not be at Harvard, but the draft is keeping them here," one dean said. Then, too, there is the academic's lament perhaps organizing against the war has taken the minds of students off more important matters, like studies. This, however, is not the fault of the students; it is the fault of the war.

FINALLY, the war is hurting Harvard's conscience and in a very real way the whole tradition of free thought and free expression here. There are strong moral issues at stake in the Vietnamese war--legality and honesty and humanity, for example. These have been bludgeoned by the corporations and the generals and the government. It is the University's duty to defend these moral principles. If it does not, it lives in hypocrisy. How can we refuse to act against a war that molds minds, that lies, that fits expediencies into Fords and CadillacsThe great casuality of this war will be Harvard University, and it will be hurt because of its own blind stupidity and naive belief in an irrelevant and mythical sense of neutrality.

Listen, Harvard, here you are, giving money to this war, giving brains to it, living on its fat, letting it ruin you and all you believe in. How can you let that happen? Perhaps there are no solutions to the money problems and to the problems of how to "take a stand," perhaps there are no solutions. Still, to admit the situation exists is a first step, and you won't even do that.

Directing protest against the University is altogether a healthy thing. Harvard has so far been able to ignore a real confrontation with people who feel strongly about the war. It ignored them with a pattycake symbolic punishment at the first Dow demonstration, and it ignored them last week by shutting the door in their face at Massachusetts Hall. Soon, however, it will not be able to ignore the problem. If a coherent Draft Project is set up here, it will probably be an illegal organization (after the Spock tests). Then the University is going to be forced to say "yes" or "no" to harboring such an organization. That kind of confrontation cannot be avoided, and the decision will show quite a bit about Harvard's neutrality