CRR Reform Package Goes to Council

Members of the Committee on Rights and Responsibilities (CRR) yesterday presented to the Faculty the disciplinary body's package for self-reform.

The proposals, which the CRR endorsed last week, call for the creation of an appeals board for CRR decisions, for an equal number of student and Faculty CRR members with voting power, and for the barring of all hearsay evidence from CRR and appeals board hearings.

The committee also asked the Faculty to allow the CRR to make the transcripts of its hearings public, if both parties agree. The CRR does not currently release records of its hearings.

The Faculty created the CRR in 1970 to discipline students involved in political demonstrations. Shortly after the CRR's inception, students began to boycott the CRR by refusing to send student representatives to the committee.

The boycott ended last year when the Class of '80 voted to nominate students to serve on the committee. The four Class of '80 members now sitting on the committee have played a key role in pushing for this latest spate of reform proposals.

Robert Ware Jr. '80, one of the student CRR members, said yesterday that Faculty Council members asked "pointed questions" about the proposals, particularly the proposal to establish a separate appeals board.

"They also asked us if there should be a CRR at all," Ware said.

The council will continue to discuss the reform proposals, and plans to evaluate the potential impact of the reforms by interviewing Faculty members and students on both sides of past CRR hearings.

Charles P. Whitlock, associate dean for special projects, said yesterday that the council may talk with some of the students who participated in a 1972 takeover of Massachusetts Hall in protest of Harvard's investments in the Gulf Oil Co.

The University has since readmitted some of the students whom the CRR suspended after the takeover, and a few are currently studying at Harvard, Whitlock said.

The council will eventually make a recommendation to the Faculty on the reform proposals, and send it to the full Faculty for a final decision.

Dean Rosovsky told the CRR members in the council meeting that he would invite them back to review the reforms with the council before making a recommendatior, Ware said.

In the meantime, the student CRR members plan to meet to discuss the reform proposals with House Committee members and with the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences Council, which has continued its boycott of the CRR.

Several House committees voted last week to postpone a decision on whether to begin nominating representatives to the body again until the Faculty acts on these latest reform suggestions