The Bad Book

IT WAS 3 a.m., and from the open window's the B-52s and their tender ballad. "Rock Lobster, blare. That isn't all: people are playing catch with beer kegs, tossing them out the third floor window to friends waiting on the ground. And that isn't all; inside the Winthrop House suite they are playing football, tackle football, and there is a large bole developing in one wall. When the House Master orders them to stop, they offer him a beer: when the senior tutor calls the police, someone hears the sirens, gets the idea there is a fire, and empties every extinguisher in the entry.

The conclusion of this story is too obvious--and too sad--to detail at length. The four senior inhabitants of the room are hauled before the Administrative Board. where their actions are scrutinized by a panel of tough but fair administrators. It is regrettable, the Ad Board concludes, but there is only one possible outcome: the entire rooming group, including one summa cum laude candidate in Social Studies, will be required to withdraw, eligible, at best, for readmission within a year. After all, they have clearly violated a good half-dozen of the rules in the student handbook: "radios, television sets, phonographs, and other audible equipment shall be adjusted so as not to disturb others...No boisterous music or playing upon drums or other harsh instruments shall be allowed at any time...A student who is guilty of an offense against law and order at the time of a public disturbance or demonstration or who disregards the instructions of a proctor or other University officer at such a time may be required to withdraw...No student shall play boisterous games." Out on their asses.

Yeah, and Harvard has a better football team than Notre Dame. Don't mourn too long for this foursome. The police came and asked them to turn down the volume. They did, the police left, they turned the knob back up again, and three months later they graduated (a feat they celebrated with another, even larger, party). They are proof positive of an axiom worth knowing: most of the rules and regulations relating to conduct are enforced about as often as state statues against oral sex.

Everyone plays boisterous games (though not everyone tosses beer kegs out the window--if you feel the urge, make sure the keg is empty, and the window open). Stereos are rarely played softly; there are, truth be told, very few Mantovani afficionados here. And "noisy or disorderly occupants of a room in a dormitory under University supervision" are very rarely, if ever dismissed. A few years ago, some Kirkland House students built a disco dance floor in their room, complete with strobes and turbo-charged stereos. Every night, they danced. all through the fall semester, even though their dance floor was also the ceiling of the Master's bedroom. Finally they were called on the carpet. Their punishment? They would have to dismantle the dance floor.

So don't worry too much about peace reigning in Harvard Yard. If your proctor is a first-year law student, you may spend the year in relative silence; if not, feel free to crank the stereo. Don't worry, because if you're bothering another Harvard student the chances are very slim that they'll be too shy to complain. These rules exist mainly as pretexts for disciplinary action if someone really--really, really--gets out of hand, or worse, embarasses Harvard. A freshman three years ago was distilling nitroglycerine in large quantities in his bedroom, which would seem to fall under "possession on University property of...explosives or combustible fluids." Indeed, his freshman adviser asked him to stop. But it was only when he had the bad taste to go on a local t.v. show and boast about his feat that they asked him to withdraw.

Almost every regulation in this slim book dates from some specific incident. Surely some 17th century professor was kept awake by a drum; when he introduced the idea of a percussion ban at the next Faculty meeting, his sensible brethren broadened it to include other "harsh instruments." And in 1969, when students finally got sick enough of the Establishment/liberal hypocrisy that allowed ROTC to stay on campus training bomber pilots, they took over the main administration building. Not only did Harvard officials roust them in a bloody pre-dawn bust, the also battled each other to see who could mouth the most pomposities about "academic freedom" and "free and open scholarly debate." Less than a year later, the Faculty followed their lead, passing the "Resolution on Rights and Responsibilities" and setting up a commission to enforce it.

The text of the resolution, contained in the Student Handbook, talks at great length about "certain values which are essential to (Harvard's) nature as an academic community." It lists, among others, "freedom from personal force and violence" (the kind of violence and force involving carrying deans out of their offices, not the kind involving nightsticks), and "freedom of movement" (student protesters sat in front of the cars belonging to various pro-war administration officials who visited campus, forcing them to debate if they wished to leave). The resolution ends with declarations of "mutual respect and trust," and appeals to respect "for the dignity of others." In practice, the Commitee on Rights and Responsibilities (CRR) turned out to be a collection of reactionary administrators and a few students who pored over press photographs of demonstrations, trying to determine who that was over there by the free, so they could be expelled. Since it lacks due process altogether and is objectionable both in spirit and practice, students have successfully boycotted the CRR for more than a decade, a practice the Class of '85 should continue, if only out of respect for its elders.

ONLY TWO ILLUSTRATIONS appear in the 1980-81 edition of the handbook. The first is truly fascinating, showing the curious exactly where on one's auto one should paste both one's Commonwealth of Massachusetts non-resident student registration ("top center of windshield") and faculty, staff or student parking permit ("to be placed here.") The front and the rear of the sedan are labeled for easy identification. The other illustration--a flow chart of Harvard's organizational structure--is harder to follow. Power seems to flow from the Board of Overseers through the President and Fellows and down to the Expository Writing Committee. Connected by a dotted line--indicative of their mystifying purposes--are the President and Trustees of Radcliffe College. The casual observer will also notice that there are no students on the chart, except as members of two advisory committees connected by solid lines to the associate dean of Harvard College and the dean of Harvard College. At least student pols can console each other with the thought that they have as much power as Radcliffe President Matina Horner.

But then, you probably aren't coming here because you want to wield power. You want to be a lawyer. Whatever your professional plans, though, you'll have to eat, and hence you may wonder what the Handbook has to say about food. Using a modified Socratic method, the editors have asked questions which an anthropomorphized Food Service answers. What, the observer may wonder, is the "objective" of Food Services? "The objective of the department is to provide you with a variety of excellent food and courteous service to fulfill your nutritional requirements and to add to your mealtime pleasure." And "what about good Nutrition?" "The variety of food that is offered on each daily menu is designed to meet amply your complete basic nutritional requirements," Food Service answers. But this is Harvard, with its emphasis on self-reliance. And so our philospher adds "your personal selection of items and your eating habits, of course, determine the nutritional balance of your food consumption." So it does.