Those Rights and Responsibilities

The Committee of Fifteen was a predecessor of the Committee on Rights and Responsibilities convened after the April, 1969, student occupation of University Hall for the specific purpose of disciplining students who participated in that protest.

On April 14, 1970, the Faculty approved the Resolution on Rights and Responsibilities, and on January 12, 1971, invested the CRR with "authority to administer all proper means of discipline in cases involving student violations of the second and third paragraphs of the Resolution..." Those paragraphs read:

The rights of members of the university are not fundamentally different from those of other members of society. The University, however, has a special autonomy and reasoned dissent plays a particularly vital part in its existence. All members of the University have the right to press for action on matters of concern by any appropriate means. The University must affirm, assure and protect the rights of its members to organize and join political associations, convene and conduct public meetings, publicly demonstrate and picket in orderly fashion, advocate and publicize opinion by print, sign and voice.

The University places special emphasis, as well, upon certain values which are essential to its nature as an academic community. Among these are freedom of speech and academic freedom, freedom from personal force and violence, and freedom of movement. Interference with any of these freedoms must be regarded as a serious violation of the personal rights upon which the community is based. Furthermore, although the administrative processes and activities of the University cannot be ends in themselves, such functions are vital to the orderly pursuit of the work of all members of the University. Therefore, interference with members of the University in performance of their normal duties and activities must be regarded as unacceptable obstruction of the essential processes of the University. Theft or willful destruction of the property of the University or its members must also be considered an unacceptable violation of the rights of individuals or of the community as a whole.

The resolution includes the following "interpretation" added on at the end: "The Faculty regards it as implicit in the language of the Resolution on Rights and Responsibilities that intense personal harassment of such a character as to amount to grave disrespect for the dignity of others be regarded as an unacceptable violation of the personal rights on which the University is based."