verbal warning was issued, and the presumption was that a recurrence would probably result in severance— ouster, usually for a year, with the right to apply for readmission—of any demonstrators. Now the question of punishment was alive again. and it reverted to the col- lege’s Administrative Board, which handles all major student disciplinary and academic problems. The Board, composed of the college’s deans, a few faculty members, and senior tutors for the residential Houses (where most of the three upper classes live), faced incredibly complex situation. i First, it had to resolve substantive Frederick Leavitt, a recruiter from the Dow Chemical Co. issues. Liberal arts colleges stand as the guardian of free speech and dissent. They abhor punishing political protest fiable, was it at least pardonable? After all, many of the nondemonstrators claimed to share the demonstrators’ hatred for the war. The debate grew deadly serious. It became a passionate, emotional issue, as if Harvard, in those 6 days, were except when the protest of some has impaired the rights of others. Had that line really been crossed in the Dow demonstration, and, if so, how grave was the transgression? Second, the Board was confronted with a baffling procedural problem. When the deans had demanded stu- goingto settle all the moral and political problems of the war. At the Crimson, the coliege’s daily newspaper, one of the most acrimonious editorial debates in dent years resulted a periodic practice—running than 400 cards were ultimately turned in. Who had actuaily participated, and a minority. One senior faculty member prepared to resign and had to be and portrayed their action as a funda- ing to in the paper’s revert- two sets of editorials, a majority and persuaded by a colleague to wait until the college had decided on the severity of disciplinary action (in the end, he stayed). Student organizations of all beliefs and functions passed resolutions, and faculty members pennedletters to their favorite deans. On a question of fundamental morality, the name of the game was stand-up-and-be-counted. The heart of the college’s problem, and the point to which much of the debate was directed, was discipline. The year before, a similar incident had occurred at Harvard when Defense Secretary Robert S. McNamara had been trapped for a few minutes by angryanti- war demonstrators whoinsisted that he publicly defend government policy (the only sessions scheduled for McNamara at Harvard were semiprivate affairs). After that incident, no one was punished; the Harvard administration, which likes to be tolerant, flexible, and fair, avoided action on the groundsthat this type of protest, “intolerable” as it was, represented a first for the college, and the students had no way of know- ing what reaction to expect. A stern 1290 identification demonstrators, cards cards came from the not only from those at the sit-in itself but from those in sympathy with the sit-in. More who was to be punished? Students pleaded for “collective responsibility” mental moral commitment which deserved equal treatment for all. To During the crisis: Confronting the demonstrators, left to right, Fred L. Glimp, Dean of the College, and J. P. Elder, Dean of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. poses, amounted to a very sharp warning. (Some of the traditional “teeth” of the penalty were deliberately drawn; no one placed on probation was to have his scholarship reviewed, nor was any- one already on probation to face automatic severance.) What happened in those 5 days demonstrated why Harvard is different from Berkeley. The Administrative Board’s shift was real enough, but not so sharp as it seemed. Some students suspected that the Board’s change of heart represented a shrewd strategy: first act inflexible and frighten the students; then soften up and win their silent and grudging move), the piles of cards represented a gratitude. Events probably tended to have that effect, but the script was not written in advance. The Board was never as vindicative as it sounded. Most of the Thursday found and paralyze the Administrative confusion. Specifically, the Board, on The Board first met the day after the demonstration, on Thursday, and its to divide the stacks of identification many faculty members and adminis- trators (as shrewder well as to some of the students who planned the sophisticated tactic designed to conBoard. It almost did. first instinct, reflected by stories in the Crimson, was to act tough. Some students, it was reported, would probably be severed. This prospect raised the college’s internal debate to a new feverish level—especially on the part of the demonstrators’ partisans, both student and faculty. meeting was spent bringing order out of the basis of visual identification, decided cards into three groups—individuals who had actually been seen blocking the door to the room where Leavitt was trapped, those who had been seen at, but not taking part in, the demonstra- tion, and those who had simply handed in their cards. There was no binding discussion of punishment. On the Board there were those who believed that when the severance was inevitable, if not desir- and final time and presented its recommendations for punishment to the faculty, its views had apparently moderated, No one was to be suspended; 74 demonstrators were to be placed on probation—a punishment which sounds harsh but which, for all practical pur- that severance was too stiff a penalty. However, 5 days later, Administrative Board met for a third able, and those whofelt, even this early, The Crimson’s readers received an impression of greater rigidity for two reasons. First, Dean Glimp, who chairs the Board, felt initially that severance was inevitable, and the Crimtson reporters naturally lent weight to the dean’s SCIENCE, VOL. 158