Faculty Spent $11K To Mail CRR Report

It cost the Committee on Rights and Responsibilities (CRR) about $7000 to prosecute students involved in two anti-apartheid protests last spring.

And then it cost the University another $11,000 to tell everyone about it.

Two 30-page reports detailing the University's version of the protests were mailed last week all 8700 students in the College and Graduate School of Arts and Sciences (GSAS) students, as well as all 350 professors in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences.

The reports cost "25 to 50 cents each" to print and another $1.07 each to mail, bringing the total cost to as high as $15,000, according to John R. Marquand, secretary to the Faculty Council, the faculty's elected steering body.

"The council wants to be sure that the undergraduate students have a good opportunity to acquaint themselves with the contents of the reports," Marquand said.

The reports--the CRR's official report on the incidents and subsequent disicpline, and the report by the faculty's Commission on Inquiry which investigated allegations of police brutality--cover the April 24 sit-in at the 17 Quincy St. headquarters of Harvard's governing Corporation and the May 2 blockade of a South African diplomat inside Lowell House.

Lowell House Master William H. Bossert '59, who is a member of the council, said he felt that if the reports had "not been distributed, everybody would have suspected there was a cover-up."

Stanley I. Rosenzweig '87, chief of Harvard Student Agencies' flyer distribution service, said HSA would have charged "no more than $1000" for doorway delivery to each undergraduate.

But Marquand said, "It was [the council's] view that if they dropped them at doors, they would be picked up and swept away," said Marquand.

However, many of the packets never made it to post office boxes because of their size, and were subsequently put in the bins beneath the boxes.

"My envelope is still sitting next to the mailbox," said Michelle E. Macken '89, who lives in Weld Hall. "It would have had a better chance of being read if it had been delivered to the door."

Marquand said he was not aware of the bin problem. "First class mail, as I understand it, should be put in the boxes," he said.

In at least one case, however, the mail never made it to the boxes or the bins. Leverett House Superintendent Warren W. Nugent said that the post office dropped off mail for Leverett residents "in bulk form," and that the packets were subsequently distributed in the serving line in the Leverett dining room.

Many students questioned why Harvard sent a report to every single student, instead of just to every suite. "Those who are interested don't need their personal copy," said Stuart M. Semmel '88 of Lowell House. "I'm sure that a lot of people are letting the reports languish on their shelves or in the garbage can.