After Six Years, A Just Delay For Hartman

Six years after it began, the complex case of Chester W. Hartman '57, one-time assistant professor of City Planning, 'continues to tarnish the lackluster reputation of the Graduate School of Design. While the school's faculty voted correctly last week to delay until next fall its ruling on Hartman's charges that he was not rehired in 1969 for personal and political reasons, every other development this semester suggests a desire to dispose of the affair quickly rather than to systematically confront the GSD's questionable past actions.

The spring 1976 production of the tales of Hartman began with the April 1972 report of the GSD's Academic Policy Committee, a five-member panel that had studied the affair for six months. The committee's work was almost entirely founded on the three-year-plus investigation of yet another panel of five non-GSD faculty, the Hartman Review Committee. However, the report of the policy committee, which the panel has never released publicly, takes a markedly more lenient approach than its predecessor. The critical comment in the first study either is excluded altogether or fails to find its way into any of the policy committee's conclusions. Thus, while the first review committee agreed that Hartman had "legitimate" procedural and substantive grievances, the Academic Policy Committee concluded that Hartman's department has "sufficient legitimate grounds" for not reviewing the junior faculty member's appointment, and the committee recommended that the GSD take "no remedial action toward Dr. Hartman."

The most shocking conclusion in the Academic Policy Committee's report concerns not Hartman's charges but the failure of several GSD faculty members to cooperate fully with the Hartman Review Committee. While the review panel reserved its strongest criticism for the uncooperative and called on the GSD faculty to take "due note of this fact and take such action as they deem appropriate," the members of the Academic Policy Committee--who are colleagues of the criticized faculty members--concluded that they could not recommend that the GSD even consider censure "in the absence of known standards and accepted procedures in this area." This flatly contradicts the report of the first committee, which noted explicitly that "in normal academic practice, as embodied in policy statements of the American Association of University Professors, past practice at Harvard, and the legislation establishing the review committee, there is a presumption that, upon showing of a prima facie case by the aggrieved party... it is incumbent upon those responsible for the decision in question to come forward with a statement or reason."

UNFORTUNATELY, the long-awaited and self-interestedly roseate report of the policy committee is not the only new stain on the GSD's record in this affair. The GSD faculty, meeting last week with only 25 voting members present (one over the quorum requirement), added a few blotches of its own.

First, the motion to delay passed by only a one-vote margin, in spite of its support from Hartman, who, while anxious to resolve the affair, required more time to prepare a response to the policy panel's report. As he said in a statement to the faculty,"... I have invested far too much time and energy in the appeal to allow it to end in an overly hasty, procedurally defective fashion..." The narrowness of the vote must be taken as a regrettable indication of a desire to be rid of the affair, not to resolve it equitably.

Secondly, the faculty voted to reject Hartman's request to attend its debate next fall either in person or through counsel. This decision was wrong for several reasons. First, while Hartman will not be permitted to attend, the faculty members charged with wrongdoing may do so. Thus they will have not only the advantage of stating their case directly to the faculty but also of voting on the GSD's resolution of the affair. For example, GSD Dean Maurice D. Kilbridge, who was involved in the Hartman controversy in 1969-70, attended last week's meeting and spoke against giving the extra time requested by Hartman. Even more seriously, senior faculty in Hartman's department--City and Regional Planning--who only partially cooperated with the review panel's investigation may come and state their cases for the first time.

Permitting Hartman or his counsel to be present is especially important as the dispute enters its seventh year. Many of the school's faculty members arrived after Hartman departed and know virtually nothing about the controversy. Ignorant thus of the facts and issues involved--which are exceedingly complicated--and probably reluctant to study the 300-page review committee report, these professors probably will be swayed by the dialogue in the meeting.

It is no doubt naive to expect the faculty to reverse its decision now. But the GSD must remember that if it continues to handle the Hartman affair with an eye towards expediency and not toward justice it will only further sully its name. For Hartman has made it clear that if the school refuses to scrutinize its past actions seriously, he will bring his case to President Bok, to the American Association of University Professors and possibly, to the courts.