Faculty Releases Plan To Dissolve CRR

The steering committee of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences (FAS) yesterday released its plan to revamp the disciplinary system, and the dean of the FAS said that if the proposal is not approved, he will scrap the idea of reform.

After an 18 month review of the controversial Committee on Rights and Responsibilities (CRR), the Faculty Council yesterday made public a revised, four-page plan to replace the CRR with a 13-member student-faculty committee on discipline.

The Faculty Council in the next few weeks will seek input from students in the College and Graduate School of Arts and Sciences (GSAS) and from faculty members before sending the plan to a vote of the full faculty, said Dean of the College L. Fred Jewett '57. But Dean of the Faculty A. Michael Spence said that if the Faculty votes down the proposed plan, he will likely forego future efforts to change the CRR.

"Everything's been tried to reach some, sort of consensus," Spence said. "We've sort of exhausted every avenue we could."

"We haven't really faced the issue yet," Jewett, who chaired the proposal's drafting committee, said of the possibility of the Faculty rejecting the plan. "I don't know what we'd do. We may well be stuck with what we have."

Jewett said the plan is a successful attempt at finding the "middle ground" of the faculty and the students. "It's probably as good a composite piece our committee felt we could work out considering the various views of the people involved," he said.

Under the plan, the Administrative Boards of the College and GSAS would maintain the bulk of their powers, hearing cases of "cheating, plagiarism, theft, and instances of violence, harassment, and disorderly conduct that are essentially private matters."

The new body, which will have seven faculty members--one of whom will be a non-voting chairman--and six students, will hear cases with "broad implications for the community and on which there is no clear precedent or consensus in the community about the impermissibility of the actions or the appropriate response." After a case has been heard by the new committee, establishing a precedent, future cases of a similar nature would be heard by the Ad Board.

The CRR, created by the Faculty to enforce its 1969 Resolution on Rights and Responsibilities, has been used to hear cases arising from political protests. Students have refused to sit on the committee which has seven voting faculty members and six students.

The Faculty will have the power to overturn the decisions of the boards. The Faculty did not have authority over the CRR.

The shantytown constructed in the Yard last April by divestment ac- tivists is a good example of a case that wouldhave been heard by the new body, Jewett said,adding that there was a question of whether theshanties constituted a discipline problem or werean appropriate expression of free speech.

Other provisions of the reform plan include:

.six student representatives chosen by lotteryfrom a pool of all registered students;

.six faculty and administrative representativesand a chairman who will vote only on "routineprocedural issues";

.an open hearing at the defendant's requestunless the body votes by two-thirds to close thehearing to "maintain good order "or "to protectthe rights of students involved."

The plan requires that a voting quorum of eightmembers be present to conduct business, but ifstudents were to boycott the body, the FacultyCouncil could reassign the case to the Ad Board or"take other appropriate action." In addition, thenew body will not hear cases involving faculty oradministrators.

Reaction to the proposal among studentsinvolved in the disciplinary reform process wasmixed. Richard S. Eisert '88, one of twoundergraduates on the drafting committee, hailedthe plan as a major breakthrough for students.

"I'm very satisfied with it insofar as itincorporates everything we thought we could get,"said Eisert, who next week will run forreelection as chairman of the UndergraduateCouncil.

But other students said Eisert and formercouncil chairman Brian C. Offutt, the otherundergraduate on the Faculty Council's draftingcommittee, failed to meet their responsibility totheir constituents.

The council had proposed another plan whichwould have created a single judiciary that wouldhave had jurisdiction over students, faculty andadministrators.

"I felt kind of useless sitting on thatcommittee," said Jay I. Hodos '89 of theUndergraduate Council's ad hoc committee ondiscipline.

Hodos said that Eisert and Offutt, in theirrole as members of the drafting committee,compromised the student government's position bysupporting the proposal of the Faculty Council