CFIA Demonstration Face Bowie's Charge Of Rights Violation

Robert R. Bowie, director of the Center for International Affairs (CFIA), said last Saturday that he would file disciplinary charges with the Committee on Rights and Responsibilities (CRR) against students who disrupted a meeting of the CFIA Visiting Committee over two weeks ago.

Bowie said that he has not yet determined the number and character of the charges he plans to file. But he said that the charges will be finalized and forwarded to the CRR within the next several days.

In addition, the University may prosecute non-students who demonstrated against the Visiting Committee. Archibald Cox '34, Samuel Williston Professor of Law and University spokesman, said last night that Harvard has not yet decided whether to take legal action against non-student protestors, but said that the possibility is still under consideration.

Last April 9, about 200 demonstrators entered the CFIA and forced their way past University officials into the second-floor room where the Visiting Committee was meeting. Bowie then told the demonstrators that they were violating the Faculty's Interim Resolution on Rights and Responsibilities.

When demonstrators refused to leave, the Visiting Committee members left the meeting room and scattered through the crowd. Bowie, his wife and two members of the Committee made their way to Bowie's car in the Mallinckrodt parking lot, where they were pursued and surrounded by demonstrators.

Bowie and Joseph E. Johnson '27, vice-chairman of the Visiting Committee and President of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, then fled to the Harvard Square MBTA island and entered a taxi cab, where demonstrators engulfed and trapped them for 20 minutes.

The Visiting Committee finally resumed its deliberations in mid-afternoon.