News

Progressive Labor Party Organizes Solidarity March With Harvard Yard Encampment

News

Encampment Protesters Briefly Raise 3 Palestinian Flags Over Harvard Yard

News

Mayor Wu Cancels Harvard Event After Affinity Groups Withdraw Over Emerson Encampment Police Response

News

Harvard Yard To Remain Indefinitely Closed Amid Encampment

News

HUPD Chief Says Harvard Yard Encampment is Peaceful, Defends Students’ Right to Protest

Discipline

NO WRITER ATTRIBUTED

from force or violence as well as for violation of the Third Statute.

Would Press Charges

Pasztor said on Wednesday that if the UCG recommendations are approved by the President and the Corporation, he will press charges under the third paragraph of the Resolution on Rights and Responsibilities.

Whether the proposed disciplinary procedure is implemented in time to be used by Dunlop and Pasztor or not, the final disciplinary power will still rest with the Governing Boards of the University. The screening and hearing bodies proposed by the UCG recommendations will only have the power to throw out cases and advise the President and the Corporation.

Putnam

Hilary Putnam, professor of Philosophy, has attacked the UCG recommendations. He said he is fairly certain that he is the defendant of Pasztor's charges. "I have no proof," he said, "but I have no doubts."

Putnam argued in a Faculty meeting April 13 that the recommended procedures "expose the sham neutrality of the University." He described the recommended procedures as "an attempt to stampede the faculty into a mood of repression which could be used to purge me from the faculty and people who think like me."

On Wednesday, he said that any charges against him would not be based on the extent of his participation at the Sanders Theatre incident, but on his political allegiances. Putnam is a member of the Progressive Labor Party.

Criticism

The recommended procedures have been criticized by two other faculty members for their lack of substantive specificity, despite the more specific grounds for discipline provided by the addition of the third paragraph of the Resolution on Rights and Responsibilities to the Third Statute of the University.

Alan M. Dershowitz, professor of Law, the only member of the Law Faculty to vote against the UCG recommendations, said on April 24 that "although the recommendations are procedurally specific, they make no attempt to define a bill of rights concerning free speech and freedom of assembly."

Although a hearing procedure would exist under which the recommendations and charges could be brought against a faculty member for violating freedom of speech or academic freedom. Dershowitz argued that there is no specific declaration of what a faculty member is free to do and "no fair warning" as to what actions will result in disciplinary procedures.

Everett I. Mendelsohn, professor of History of Science and Harvard representative to the Association of American University Professors, concurred with Dershowitz "Something which makes clear what people can and cannot do is necessary," he said on Tuesday. "The attitude of the existing disciplinary structure is punitive in nature, with little attempt to bring out a greater understanding."

Want to keep up with breaking news? Subscribe to our email newsletter.

Tags