Text of President Bok's Policy Statement

According to federal law, male students born in 1960 or later must register with Selective Service in July of 1982. Congress passed an amendment stipulating that no federal student and funds be distributed to individuals failing to register. While a Federal District Court earlier this year found this requirement unconstitutional and enjoined its enforcement, the Supreme Court has now stayed that injunction. Thus, under regulations promulgated by the Department of Education, all students seeking and must file a statements indicating either that they have registered or that they are female, born before 1960, or otherwise exempt from the registration requirements. Unless they file such a statement, they many not receive federal scholarship grants, federally guaranteed or subsidized loans, or federally subsidized work study funds. Beginning with the 1985-86 academic year, students also will have to provide the University with documentary verification of their statements before the University can process their federal financial aid.

We do not know how many Harvard students have failed to register, let alone how many of these are receiving federal aid Nevertheless, informal polls suggest that a small number of our students fall within the latter category other, who are not required to register, may choose to protest the law by refusing to complete the form required by the Department of Education. As a result, the question arises whether the University should offer students grants or loans to replace any federal and they lose by virtue of the new law.

In considering this issue. I must begin by recording my personal concerns about this legislation. I have doubts about the constitutionality of a statute that seems to impose financial penalties on those who have not been convicted of violating federal law with the attendant safeguards of due process. I question the fairness of a statute that penalizes needy students without affecting more affluent classmates who commit the same offense. I am uncomfortable with a measure that interferes with the normal relationship between universities and students by forcing educational institutions to help public a federal statute that has no educational purpose Still, our task is not to pass judgement on the wisdom of Congress in enacting this legislation. Nor can we simply await the outcome of the Supreme Court action in its next term when it will consider the constitutionality of the law. We must decide now how the University should act toward those who have failed to comply.

To help the President and Fellows resolve this questions. I discussed the issue with the deans of the several faculties on two separate occasions. Students, professors, alumni, and even local newspapers have also expressed their opinions on the subject. After considering these views, the President and Follows have decided not to offer scholarship funds, subsidized loans, or subsidized employment to compensate for the loss of federal support to those failing to comply with the new law. Nevertheless, such students can bud for available campus jobs at the regular rates of compensations (provided they are not financed by federal work-study funds), and we will also make available loans to them at unsubsidized rates of interest.

Some observers have suggested that this policy is too harsh and that the University should reimburse students for their loss of federal funds by replacing grants with grants and loan subsides with equal subsides. These critics point out that Harvard has a policy of insuring that all students talented enough to enter will be admitted regardless of need and offered a package of grants, loans, and self-help sufficient to permit then...to complete their studies. Thus, they argue that Harvard should not abandon this policy and allow students to lose their normal scholarships and subsidized loans simply because they have failed to comply with some unrelated federal law Unless Harvard makes up for the loss of these funds. It will allow the federal government to dictate its financial and policy. The University, it is said, should be particularly loath to allow this to happen when the students involved are losing government support because of their sincere moral convictions and when the loss of and may have the inequitable result of forcing needy students to suffer more for their beliefs than their more affluent classmates.

These arguments are vulnerable on several counts. To begin with. Harvard does not guarantee and to meet the needs of all who are admitted. The prevailing policy is to assist students only after they have taken advantage of other recognized forms of financial support, including federal and. Thus, students who prefer to be independent, rather than accept the funds their family can afford to give them, cannot expect to obtain assistance from Harvard to replace parental support. Nor can they look to the University to meet their needs if they negligently fail to make timely application to the federal government for available government support.

How should this policy he applied to students who have lost their federal aid by refusing to register for reasons of conscience? In our view, the University should be most reluctant to offer assistance and encouragement of any kind to students who violate the law. One can appreciate the courage of those who are willing to live by their principles. But individuals who choose to stand on their convictions and disobey the law must normally bear the consequences themselves. Such repressions of conscience are highly personal, and one cannot expect others to pay the cost.

The University would encounter grave difficulties if it departed from this principle and began to reimburse students who refused Federal aid for reasons of conscience. Some of those who fail to register may do no because they disapprove of war of conscription and feel that they should not cooperate in any fashion. Others who are not required to register may refuse to file the necessary compliance forms because they object that registration laws apply only to men of because they consider such laws unconstitutional or unjust. If Harvard agreed to pay the bill, students might refuse federal aid on a variety of other grounds, such as a belief that government grants are the tainted fruit of an unjust system of taxation. The University could not consider the merits of such claims without undertaking to judge difficult and controversial issues that could distract and divide its students and faculty. To resolve these questions. Harvard would have to take official positions on political questions in a manner that might threaten academic freedom. Students and alumni would object that their tuition payments, and donations were being used to support principles which they strongly opposed. For all these reasons. Harvard cannot agree to reimburse students in such cases, at least unless the moral grounds for their action are clear, compelling, and widely recognized.

In our view, the present situation does not meet this stringent test. In this regard, we note that the registration law does not conflict with the legally recognized, traditional night of conscientious objection, since it does not abridge existing rights under selective service laws to raise such a claim if Congress reinstitutes the draft and a student is classified for induction. Thus, while we acknowledge that sincere reasons of conscience may lead some students to refuse to register of complete the compliance forms, we believe that they, not Harvard, should hear the consequences of their beliefs.

We recognize that needy students may suffer a burden for refusing to register that more affluent classmates will avoid. It we view the statute as a way of penalizing those who violate the law, this result seems inequitable and unjust. Nevertheless, it can be argued that the statute simply reflects a desire not to use the taxpayers' money to benefit those who violate federal laws. Moreover, even if the legislation is unfair, the fault lies with the Congress and does not necessarily afford a compelling basis for having the University provide reimbursement.

Entirely different arguments have been advanced by other critics, who insist that universities should do nothing whatsoever in help students who fail to register. According to this view, even unsubsidized loans and campus jobs represent a form of help or at least afford some measure of convenience to nonregistering students. As such, these jobs and loans arguably constitute encouragement to those who violate the law and manifest disrespect on the University's part toward the will of Congress.

In our view, these argument, are labored at best. Students who do not register face the threat of jail sentences and fines. The loss of federal grants and subsidized loans could costly add several thousand dollars more to these criminal penalties. In such circumstances it would start common sense to argue that the willingness of the University to offer a regular job or an unsubsidized loan could encourage disrespect for law or flout the will of Congress.

Those who feel that universities should give no assistance at all would presumably feel that other employers should likewise refuse jobs to nonregistrants and that other lending institutions should deny them loans. In our opinion, such arguments are not merely unpersuasive, they are vindictive and harmful. Private institutions can make and enforce rules to promote their own organizational interests. But it is the government's task to punish those who violate public laws. When private organizations assume this role, they run severe risks of inflicting penalties that are not only ill-considered and excessive but vary unjustifiably from one offender to the next. In short, law enforcement is a public responsibility: allowing it to move to private hands invariably threatens to produce injustice.

We would end our statement with one final point for those who feel that nothing whatsoever should be done to after jobs or unsubsidized loans to nonregistrants. A university has a certain relationship to students. They strangers other. As officials of the University we do not necessary approve of the choices students make, any more than families always approve of decisions by their members. But we are certainly not prepared to server all connections with our students and deny them any means to continue their work simply because we disagree with their attitudes toward the registration Law. Those who fail to register will pay a price for their convictions. But they are still our students We may not agree with them in resisting the law nor wish to shield them from the consequences of their acts. But we surely have an interested in enabling them to finish the education for which they came to us in the first place in our opinion we an interested we will best reconcile our varying interests and responsibilities by following the course of action we have outlined above.