Jumping to Conclusions

WHEN THE WORD "DISCIPLINE" started being mentioned in the same context as anti-apartheid protests of last spring, many held the view that the blockade-turned scuffle between students and police at Lowell House was too confusing to ever be sorted out. The body charged with investigating student wrong-doing has proven such skeptics wrong. But the body charged with a similar responsibility for the police and administration hasn't done nearly enough research for a similarly clear picture to emerge from its deliberations.

In two separate investigations, the Committee on Rights and Responsibilities (CRR) and the Commission of Inquiry (COI) have come up with remarkably similar conclusions about what happened at that protest. Both reports found that students formed a blockade (be it active or passive) in front of the Lowell House Junior Common Room to prevent a South African diplomat's exit. They also found that Harvard Police acted entirely on their own in deciding to form a "human battering ram" through the blockade to free the diplomat.

But the similarities end there. The CRR's report disciplines protesters for violations of the Faculty legislation upholding rights of freedom of movement. The COI report, on the other hand, concludes that police did not use excessive force in any of their actions, that students were not recruited by police to help form the battering ram, and that an isolated incident of excessive force by one police officer could not be connected with the badge number eyewitnesses gave to the commission.

The CRR heard more than 60 hours of testimony from students, administrators, and police present at the protest; it worked through the summer in determining the events and violations that occurred at Lowell House; and it spent thousands of dollars to bring students from around the country to testify before the committee.

Meanwhile, the COI appointed a special master to investigate student complaints against police. He held interviews with police and with some of the nine complainants. He also asked the dean of students to put him in touch with some eyewitnesses whom complainants said would testify that a police officer threw a student down a flight of stairs and that the chief of police did in fact recruit Conservative Club members to form the battering ram.

That these student eyewitnesses were not able speak to special master Milton Katz '27 is partly the fault of the students themselves. Katz's number is in the phone book, and they could have easily contacted him. "I was happy to talk to anybody who wanted to speak to me," said Katz.

But the lack of true investigation is also partly, perhaps primarily, the fault of the COI and Katz. Those students' phone numbers are also available from the Harvard operator, and Katz's claim that "undergraduates are very hard to get in touch with" doesn't hold much water.

It is true that Vice President and General Counsel Daniel Steiner '54 is himself looking into the issues of police consultation with administrators and the isolated incident of excessive force. It is true that unlike the CRR, the COI has no power of discipline.

But it is also true that the COI has the perogative to send a special master back to the drawing board for further investigation, and that it has the power to make its own recommendations even after seeing Katz's suggestions. That it did not pursue either of these courses of action is more than regrettable. It is untenable.