Power Games

THE MOST STRIKING fact that emerged from the spate of campus demonstrations this spring was the inability of the administration to respond gracefully to student complaints. Student movements lately have ranged from the most self-serving to the most al truistic--from law School students sitting-in to protest a grading policy change to rallies in support of divestiture. But University administrators have fueled almost all of them by giving students the impression that they don't give a damn

Some choice instances in which this approach has managed to turn a protest into a moral crusade.

The Law School faculty passes a grading policy change which to spires legitimate disagreement some students feel that grading students on class participation could interfere with the Law School's blind and therefore objective marking procedures, but many observers dismiss the complaints as an advanced form of grade grubbing But the faculty passes it when the proper student representatives are absent without warning them that the measure will come up for consideration.

Dean of Freshmen Henry C. Moses refuses to publicize minority events in the official freshman week calendar just as administrators roll out the red carpet for perspective minority members of the class of '87. Over a matter of simple listings in the official freshman week bulletin. Moses look an unmoving stance while a coalition of women's and Third World student groups rallied repeatedly outside his office. But he took several days to explain his reasons, and dealt curtly with the protestors throughout

University Treasurer George Putnam '49, when informed that students are tasting to pressure Harvard to divest from companies with ties to South Africa, laughs and says. "That's their preference."

FOR THE MOST PART, these cases are not cut and dried, administrators can muster reasonable arguments for officially differing with students. But by making unnecessary and irrelevant comments and taking stubborn stands on trivial matters such as listing minority events, the administration hinders attempts at what could otherwise become meaningful dialogue. The only alternative quickly becomes demonstrations, marches, rallies and other timeworn methods of student protest.

That most movements these days do not escalate into all-out wars against the administration is due in large part to the University's deft handling. To repeated divestiture protests, the administration can always respond by providing an open forum of the Advisory Committee on Shareholder Responsibility, a mostly impotent body of faculty, students, and alumni which tries to instill some sense of responsibility into the men upstairs. Recently, Bok also rehashed a four-year-old argument in a long open letter, which assured us he was thinking long and hard about the divestiture matter. Though his musings did not cross over the point from which the demonstrators started--the issue is a moral one--he probably satisfied some people that he was listening. And when the current crop of radicals is sucked into the rat race, the issue will probably lie dormant for several more years. At the Law School, student protests prompted a postponement of the implementation of the new grading policy. It sounded like a concession, but a one-year delay in a transient community is more likely to make the issue fade.

Meanwhile, the University can continue to play games with students as long as it wishes. Students will continue to march, hold candles, yell, and do strange things to John Harvard's statue as long as there is a University, but unfeeling comments and stances that smack of snideness reveal that Harvard continues to turn a deaf ear. The frequent, unnecessary clashes keep the Crimson front page supplied, but the underlying difficulty remains: If, as administrators agree, the University-student relation should be one of mutual responsibility, it should not be unreasonable to ask Bok and his cronies to show respect for what students have to say as well--to listen to complaints and, without the reflex of opposition, directly and thoughtfully to respond. That would be a story.