The Committee on Rights and Responsibilities

Amid student unrest in 1969. Harvard created the Committee on Rights and Responsibilities (CRR) to discipline students violating freedoms guaranteed by the Faculty's Resolution on Rights and Responsibilities (RRR).

Two weeks ago, the Faculty Council called on the CRR--which has not heard a case since 1975 to decide the cases of students involved in the Quincy St and Lowell House anti-apartheid protests.

The CRR is the only disciplinary body in which students can actively participate. Yet throughout the 1970s House committees boycotted the CRR charging that it could punish students for their political beliefs without appeal to a higher body.

In 1980, Harvard discontinued its annual request for student delegates to the committee, but renewed the offer when the Faculty Council reactivated the CRR...

The CRR is ideally composed of six Faculty members, six randomly chosen student delegates and one Faculty chairman who votes only in case of a tie. But because House committees refused to send delegates, the CRR can proceed without student members.

Students accused of violating the RRR may defend themselves in person before the CRR, which can administer any College punishment, except for dismissal or expulsion, which require Faculty approval.