Excerpts From the Report

Below are excerpts from the Committee on Rights and Responsibility's report on discipline for the 37 students. The Committee's summary is first, followed by sections of the 15-page text.

In its disciplinary decisions in these cases, the Committee on Rights and Responsibilities gave weight to several considerations. First, and primarily, the Committee believes that a building occupation under any circumstances must be regarded as an act detrimental to the function of the University and its continued existence as a community.

Nevertheless, it was considered significant that, following the occupations of December 5 and 11, no charges were brought against individuals before the Committee on Rights and Responsibilities for use of force against individuals or damage to property. In this context, it was the feeling of the Committee that its disciplinary decisions could and should reflect the University's concern for understanding, good faith, and progress on the crucial issues at stake.

Finally, the Committee on Rights and Responsibilities took note of the fact that the overwhelming majority of those charged in the occupations of December 5 and 11 had no prior disciplinary records. This fact was weighted heavily in the decisions reached in individual cases.

Moreover, an atmosphere of coercion and disruption adversely affects the University in ways other than by impeding its normal activities. The University has faced, and will continue to face, many important issues concerning its relationship to the community and to society. Many of these issues are extremely complex, and insofar as it is impossible for the University to resolve these issues, such resolutions can be accomplished only through a mutual cooperation and discussion. Issues and problems are not discoverable, in an atmosphere of turmoil. Quite apart from the difficulty of exploring questions under such circumstances, the inevitable effect of an overtly obstructive demonstration is to divert the attention and concern of all members of the University from the substantive problems to the fact of the obstruction itself . . .

The issues of black under-employment in the construction trades is of course nationwide, and has been recognized as such by the Federal Government. As an institution which itself engages in hiring and which enters into contracts with the construction industry, Harvard University has not been divorced from this problem. This Committee, and we presume, the entire community understands that Harvard's role with respect to black employment is a matter of special concern to black students. This concern, and a sense of urgency, were brought forcefully to the attention of this Committee during hearings or in other discussions with black students.

Although it has not been possible to identify those individuals who engaged in the more seriously disruptive and intimidating activities that took place on December 11, the Committee has no doubt that this chain of episodes represented a clear progression toward greater gravity from the events of December 5th. The invocation of temporary suspension on December 11, along with the need to obtain a Court injunction in order to bring about the departure of those occupying University Hall, attests to the increasingly critical nature of occupations. There can be little question that both occupations, that of December 5 and that of December 11, were obstructive of the normal operations of the University community. On December 5 the administrative work normally conducted in University Hall-most of it directly related to the academic life of this institution-was completely halted for approximately 51/2 hours because those people who work in the building were not even permitted access to their offices. Again on December 11, this time for something over 4 hours, it became impossible to carry on normal work in University Hall. To this direct and immediate obstruction of such work must be added the subsequent impediment to the activities of University Hall resulting from the psychological toll imposed by the character of the initial occupation.

In addition to these direct effects of the occupations on the work of University Hall, there was a further cost: the time and the energies of many junior and senior Faculty members. Both on December 5, and in greater number on December 11, various Faculty members were summoned to University Hall and elsewhere to participate in consultations concerning the University's response to the occupations. These Faculty members were diverted from their work as teachers and scholars, and, we think it fair to surmise, distracted for a considerably longer period. This cost, it should be emphasized, was imposed, so far as we can determine, without any appreciable enlightenment of these Faculty members or any particular clarification for them of the complex questions of minority hiring at Harvard.