CRR's Harassment Decisions

The following is the full statement of the Committee of Rights and Responsibilities, issued Friday. The Committee voted no disciplinary action for the four students charged with harassing Dean May during the Dec. 11 occupation of University Hall.

The Committee believes that when a person is closely followed for a sustained period of time and made the object of loud, persistent and belligerent shouting or chanting, he is the object of personal harassment. No one should confuse persistence in such activity with the free expression of ideas or the exchange of opinions.

The Committee considers that on December 11, 1969, the Dean of Harvard College did experience such personal harassment.

At the same time the Committee also notes certain important elements in that situation which, had they been lacking, might have led the Committee to take serious disciplinary action against anyone found to have meaningfully participated in the harassment. First, the Resolution on Rights and Responsibilities passed by the Faculty of Arts and Sciences on June 9. 1969, does not list "harassment" as among the "unacceptable activities" described therein. What transpired on December 11 in Harvard Yard did not interfere with the freedom of speech or of the movement of the Dean within the meaning of the Resolution nor did it obstruct the essential processes of the University. Though the Committee believes that the treatment accorded the Dean was uncivil and unacceptable, it notes that some students may have believed that chanting slogans was not proscribed by the Resolution (as indeed it is not) and that this particular instance of persistent chanting while closely following the Dean therefore was a tolerable extension of the general right to carry on political activity. Second, even though the Committee believes that political activity should not extend to this form of personal harassment, it must also recognize that the powers of this Committee involve the taking of disciplinary measures with respect to actions that violate the Resolution and not to the general supervision of the good order of the University or the good conduct of its student members.

Accordingly, the Committee has concluded that the Resolution is not explicit on matters of this kind and that any committee, whatever its mandate, should in responding to the first instance of this kind of activity begin by making unmistakably clear to all concerned where the limits to behavior should be drawn.

By this letter, the substance of which the Committee is today making public, the Committee advises you and all others that henceforth they should expect that complaints may be heard and disciplinary action may follow in cases involving the persistent, sustained, loud, and proximate shouting or chanting at members of the University or in cases otherwise involving the subjection of individuals to intense personal harassment. Whether those complaints should be heard by the appropriate Administrative Board instead of this Committee or whether this Committee should have its mandate clarified in this respect by the Faculty is a matter for future determination.

The Committee is also of the view that persons who have subjected someone to such personal harassment should feel that an apology is in order.

Therefore, the Committee on Rights and Responsibilities, after careful consideration of the facts and testimony regarding these events, has voted no disciplinary action in your case. Such vote by no means constitutes either condoning your action or any assurance that similar action in the future will not warrant disciplinary measures. The Committee wishes to stress its belief that the kind of action in which you participated on December 11 seriously impedes the creation of "an atmosphere in which violations of rights are unlikely to occur."