CHUL and ROTC

THE DECISION of the Committee on Houses and Undergraduate Life not to sponsor a student referendum on ROTC was shortsighted, dangerous and anti-democratic. The CHUL failed as a representative agency of undergraduates and acted out of the most self-defeating myopic brand of bureaucratic caution.

The CHUL concluded, on the basis of Dean Rosovsky's assurances, that the return of ROTC would not be a question before the Faculty this year. But Harvard does face two issues this year which the ROTC poll would have directly addressed: the extent to which Harvard should provide research and training for the military, and President Bok's effectiveness in representing the sentiments of this University.

Regardless of Bok's insistance that it was only as a private individual that he offered his opinions on ROTC last Spring, it was inevitable--as Bok should have realized--that his public pronouncements would be read as the guidelines by which he would formulate future policies. The setting in which Bok chose to reveal his private thoughts, an alumni convocation the day before Commencement, hardly lends credence to the nation that Bok was not offering his views specifically in his role as president.

Similarly, the issue of Harvard's assistance to the military need not be put off until Army cadets stand at Harvard's gates. Assurances that normal bureaucratic channels will assure thorough debate should the return of ROTC eventually prove imminent ring hollow while Harvard departments continue, even now, to do research related to military technology and the capitalist development of Southeast Asia. We do not need to wait until ROTC's return is certain to ask ourselves what kind of University Harvard should be. A student vote on ROTC would have set a precedent for future years and provided another opinion Bok and the Corporation would have had to consider in negotiating with the Defense Department even on contracted research.

But the most astounding side of the CHUL's decision was the incredible arrogance it implicitly represented. In little over a week, almost half of all Harvard-Radcliffe undergraduates had signed a petition stating that they wanted a referendum on ROTC. The CHUL decided--on the basis of its one student "representative" from every House and one freshman observer--that it would be dangerous to raise the issue of ROTC among undergraduates presumably too unsophisticated to debate those issues in a proper perspective as long as ROTC did not represent any immediate threat. No one on the CHUL has the right to attempt to limit what undergraduates, as a public body, may think about. Any student who signed the referendum petition should vote against any CHUL House representative who tried to decide on which matters students should be allowed to express their opinions.

Four years ago, the CHUL appeared to be a welcome relief from the inept and self-serving Harvard Undergraduate Council. In its most recent decision, the CHUL has shown itself to be as elitist and undemocratic as any student government of the past. Whether as "private individuals" the members of CHUL favor ROTC is not in question. What is in question is whether undergraduates should have an effective means for raising their collective voice. At the moment, they clearly do not.