The appeals board that the reform proposals call for also poses a great threat. Three faculty members and two students, whose selection process is nowhere mentioned in the proposals, could decide to re-hear a case on grounds of, "1) improper procedure; 2) discovery of new evidence; and 3) punishment inappropriate to the offense." Clearly, almost any case could be "fit" into one of these categories, and because of its tiny size the board would be especially dominated by Faculty opinion. The three professors on the board would be able unilaterally to override the CRR and pass judgments of their own. To put such power in the hands of three faculty members would be the greatest folly, legitimizing (through an apparently democratic institution) what could easily become a weapon for political repression. This could indeed be worse than the current CRR, although a properly democratic appeals board is an important reform.
It is very important that we compare what student presence will do to the CRR with what the boycott has accomplished. In one sense, our representatives can watch over the proceedings, alert to the injustices and in close contact with the student bocy. And to the (possibly small) extent that the students' votes are influential, justice may be more directly served.
On the other hand, if we send representatives, we implicitly accept the CRR's disciplinary authority; we legitimize the body. For years, the student boycott has tainted everything the CRR has done. No false cloak of democracy has obscurred the essential injustice of CRR organization. Nothing has obscured the real power base in "our" University--to the great embarassment of our oligarchs.
The boycott has given us great leverage--the leverage of moral protest--and has prevented the University from silently closing and dressing the last wounds of 1969, the wounds that are a constant reminder of this University's narrow viewed and its recent resort to bold brutality.
No one is against friendship in times of peace, but only a fool surrenders his weapons. Moral protest is our only weapon short of building takeovers, and to weaken it by giving our sanction to a CRR that remains essentially unjust is to invite more building takeovers in the next war.
If indeed, however, the "new, improved" CRR will dispense justice, then we must of course welcome it warmly, for justice is our ultimate goal. But we must be absolutely sure that this is the case before ending the boycott. I do not believe the case has yet been made to the Harvard community.
Finally, we must consider a basic question. Without real campus democracy, maybe there should be no CRR. Perhaps we should not legitimize a body designed to enforce rules which we had no hand in making--even if that body is itself democratically organized.
***
It is clear, now, that much thinking and discussion must precede a decision on the CRR. For us, the CRR is a Supreme Court, doling out justice or injustice on a grand scale. In peace, it is hard for us to see this. But when war comes, we will be cursed if we make the wrong decision today.
It is also clear that only we--only the student body--can make this decision. No CRR, no Faculty Council, no dean, no Corporation, and no House Committee can settle this matter. Only a referendum of informed student opinion can insure that our wishes are respected. And it is our wishes that are important, for we will be the victims of political repression here is the wrong judgment is made.
In 1969, Hilary Putnam prophetically termed the original legislation empowering the Committee of 15 a "fake reform," that could only compromise the achievement of real reform. The current reform proposals are as fake as their ancestor.
William A. Schwartz '80 lives in Quincy House.