More CRR

To the Editors of The Crimson:

When a Crimson reporter rings me up (usually around 11:00 p.m.) to ask my opinion on weighty matters, I refuse to answer any but the most simple questions, on the grounds that I have no control over the results. When a reporter called on Thursday evening to inquire about the actions of the CRR during my chairmanship in 1975, I broke my rule, since it seemed that only straightforward facts were involved, which I could at least count on being accurately recorded.

How wrong I was. Of the two paragraphs in Friday's Crimson that emerged from the conversation, one is entirely inaccurate--indeed, a fabrication--and the other a serious misrepresentation. As to the first: I did not say "that the CRR did not consider how the administration identified the students" in the Mass Hall sit-in of 1975. I was never asked a question about identification. The reporter told me of several allegations made by the Task Force, including the fact that only six out of sixteen students were prosecuted; I replied that this, as well as the other facts noted by the Task Force, was known to the CRR.

Second: although I did make the statement quoted about not considering "the possibility that the administration had violated the Resolution on Rights and Responsibilities," I also explained why the CRR did not do so. The CRR cannot initiate any action; it is not a prosecuting body. No charge concerning the administration was brought before us, and we therefore considered none. The statement as it appears in The Crimson implies that the CRR made a deliberate decision in favor of the administration, to ignore alleged misdemeanors; it is to that extent a misrepresentation of what I said. Isabel G. MacCaffrey   Professor of History and Literature