Faculty Letter

In connection with the recent events at Harvard, a number of false inferences have been suggested by published news reports. Articles in the New York Times about Harvard do not conform in all respects with reality, as some examples will show. Yet it seems to us essential that the record be accurate, for misinterpretations of the actions of the Harvard faculty may encourage excesses by extremists of the left or the right far beyond the college campuses.

1. James Reston wrote on April 27, 1969, that "concessions made by faculties and administrators at ... Harvard to the use of force by campus militants have convinced officials here [in Washington] that justice is too serious a business to be left to university teachers and officials who submit to use and threat of force." But on the contrary, at the meeting of the Harvard Faculty on April 11, the resolution adopted by a vote of 395 to 13 said: "The Faculty of Arts and Sciences deplores the forcible occupation of University Hall on April 9. Responsibility for the events that followed falls, in the first instance, upon those who forced their way into the building, who forcibly ousted the officers of the University at work there, and who insisted upon remaining long after they were requested to leave. As members of a community committed to rationality and freedom, we also deplore the entry of police into any university." In general, the entire faculty felt the forcible occupation of University Hall deplorable. With respect to the police action, some members of the faculty felt the use of force to vacate the building to be wrong whereas others considered it to be unavoidable but regrettable. Nonetheless, the faculty passed the resolution almost unanimously.

In order to make sure that justice be done, the same resolution set up an elected Committee of Fifteen, whose charge includes specifically the assumption of "full responsibility for disciplining of the students involved in the forcible occupation of University Hall."

2. The headline to a collection of brief interviews in the Times on April 25 stated that the faculty was "divided." In reality, whatever individual statements obtained by telephone interviews may sound like, such "divisions" have not been reflected in votes. Most faculty actions have shown remarkable unity, and even the action to modify the Afro-American Studies Program was passed by a majority of almost 100 votes. In fact, the cohesion of the faculty has been Harvard's greatest advantage over most other universities in trouble. That would have been the far more important news story.

3. On the front page of The Weeks in Review section of April 27, the following statements appeared: "Campus Turmoil--Faculty Falters in Leadership Role: The student revolt took two significant turns at major universities last week. At Cornell, guns were used for the first time in the seizure of a building. At Harvard, the faculty gave Negro students a voice in selection of black studies professor ... the faculty, under pressure from black students broke with one of the basic traditional principles. It voted to give students a major voice--six undergraduates to seven professors--in the selection of teachers for the new Afro-American Studies Department." The article goes on to suggest that the resolution was "fuzzy", and that the faculty was abrogating its responsibilities.

It is important to point out that the situations at Harvard and Cornell are quite different. The Harvard faculty has not reversed itself. The black students have not used guns, violence, or threats. Their proposal was not a summary demand, but at least the third version of a plan on which the black student community had thoughtfully worked with interested senior members of the faculty. Faculty members of the Committee previously established to deal wit Afro-American Studies spoke for the motion. It was pointed out that the crisis of confidence had arisen in good part because, by a tragic mistake, the committee had forgotten to keep the bargain to consult the black students before the announcement of the Afro-American Program courses for next year went to press.

Moreover, the motion as passed provides that after two years the whole faculty "will review all aspects of the program and make recommendations as to the membership, operating rules, and responsibilities of the permanent Executive Committee." This amendment was accepted without demurrer by the representatives of the black students who had been invited to be present at the faculty meeting.

The Times has commented on the role of students in the selection of professors for the Afro-American Studies Department. It is essential to understand the facts here also. In line with the Rosovsky Committee report, which was adopted by the faculty on February 11, and widely hailed in the Times and elsewhere, a search committee to help recruit faculty was set up on March 5, consisting of three faculty members and three black students. This does not give them power to appoint tenure professors, however. By long-standing Harvard practice, tenure appointments to the Faculty of Arts and Sciences are made by the President and Fellows only after detailed consideration and approval by an ad hoc committee to study the merits of each proposed tenure appointee. Traditionally, the ad hoc committee, appointed by the president of the university, comprises group of non-Harvard experts in the nominee's field of scholarship and Harvard faculty members from related academic disciplines. Members of the department who make the nomination are not members of the ad hoc committee, though they may appear before it as witnesses to provide evidence of the qualifications of their nominee.

This traditional procedure will still be followed in the case of the Afro-American Rosovsky report and the modification accepted by the faculty on April 22 is not the participation of students in recommending candidates for appointment, but their ability to make recommendations directly to the administration for consideration by the ad hoc committee instead of filtering them through an intermediary faculty committee.

Another difference between the Rosovsky Committee report and the faculty resolution voted on April 22, 1969, concerns the participation of students in helping to decide on the curriculum of the new department. But here, too, there was precedent; other departments have been working under similar arrangements.

Once the first four faculty members of the new Afro-American Studies Department have been appointed, they will be joined by four students to form an executive committee charged with curriculum development and course requirements. The faculty resolution explicitly emphasized the need for an experimental approach in this attempt to develop an important and unique program in a field in which most present members of the faculty have little experience.

In view of these circumstances it is difficult for us to agree either with the description of a "faltering" faculty, or with the statement that "the faculty under pressure from black students broke with one of the basic traditional principles." Rather, it seems to us that we have made considerable progress on a journey on which we had already embarked before the events of April 9 and 10. The new program for our black students may well become a model, of relevance both the scholarship in a new field and to the peaceful evolution of democratic institutions in the United States.