University of Virginia Library

Striking Harvard Students Oppose Use Of Police

By Michael Russell
Cavalier Daily Staff Writer

—ed.

Since the violent removal of students
from University Hall by Cambridge police
late last week, following their occupation
of that building to force the abolition of
ROTC, the complexion of Harvard
University has mutated from an
educational center into some undefinable
new entity.

Originally the demands centered on
the intrusion of the Military-Industrial
Complex at Harvard. Many students
believed that a liberal arts college should
have nothing to do with this phase of
national activity which itself is
essentially non-liberal and dehumanizing.
Moreover they were enraged by Harvard's
refusal to admit the extend of the
participation. ROTC was only a
beginning.

Harvard owns great portions of
Cambridge, most of which presently
house students and low to medium
income workers. Now the Corporation,
which owns and runs Harvard, is evicting
these people and replacing the scarce low
cost housing with high-cost housing and
government research centers. This is
where the students object they don't
feel that Harvard's place in the
community should be influenced by
government or business.

The Black students (many of whom
were only recently enrolled) are
demanding a Black Studies program, to
be administered by the Blacks. In other
areas, students are now demanding that
Harvard undergo a radical reconstruction
to remove all of the problems thus far
cited.

photo by frank blechman

These then are the background issues.
The Strike, however was not generated by
these demands. Rather, the students who
participated (around 80 per cent) did so
because of Harvard's use of police. Many
who were reluctant to recognize the
validity of SDS, or Afro's, or any other
group's demands, joined the strike lines -
adamantly opposed to the intrusion of
state and local police.

Since the strike began, significant
alteration of Harvard's physiognomy has
taken place. Faculty and students now
admit that problems once thought to be
peripheral are now seen as more central
and important. Education, normally
conducted in the classrooms, is not being
carried out in Harvard Square; students
educating students, faculty learning
instead of teaching, and everyone learning
by doing.

photo by frank blechman

The issues are solidified, everyone
knows where the strikers stand. And
while they wait for the administration
and faculty to take sides, their activities
are numerous and diverse.

In their meetings, the students still
have an inherent mistrust of cameras.
Indeed this simple mistrust is somewhat
amplified and general. No one really
knows, or even develops real expectations
of what the faculty, the administration
or even the other students might do. Thus
far, there has been no talk o coalition.
When major student policy decisions had
to be made, the stadium has been used
for mass meetings. Since none are
discouraged from attending, the decisions
can certainly be ascribed to the desire of
the plurality.

Robinson Hall, the home of the
architecture school, has had its lobby
converted into a silk-screen center, with
three to five screens producing posters
almost continuously. Students are taking
in articles of clothing and having them
printed with large red fists, and the word
"STRIKE" written across the fist in blue.
Hundreds of these can be seen on
students around the campus. This
operation has a budget of nearly $300 a
day as well. All monies thus far have
come through contributions, for each
time there is a meeting, the hat is passed.

SDS is operating on a budget of $300
a day. With this money they have printed,
on mimeograph machines located on the
third floor of a "liberated building"
nearly 500,000 leaflets. Their operation
consists of a steering committee, which
makes policy, and delivers it to other
students who write the leaflets and then
see that they are duplicated and
distributed.

The Afro-American students have
been more secretive about their activities.

Their meetings are behind closed doors,
and no outsider is really welcome. For
the past several days, they have been
picketing in the morning for a black
studies program. Wednesday afternoon,
they broke the picket circle in front of
the building they had been picketing, and
marched through the streets of
Cambridge chanting and singing. At one
point, coming upon the Holyoke
administration Center, they paraded
through the open mall drawing the
attention of the administrators in the
building as they chanted, "Hey, hey,
we're on strike, (one time) STRIKE!"
The resounding volume drew to the
windows of the Center every person who
heard the call. The Afro students stopped
traffic, urged the students in the dorms to
join them, and finally returned to
Harvard Square and resumed picketing.

Marching through Holyoke Administration Center

photo by mike russell

Silk Screens in Robinson Hall.

photo by mike russell

Casual observers have claimed that the
Atmosphere at Harvard reminds them
somewhat of a carnival. And, indeed, the
students are by no means "grim
Revolutionaries." Many of them are
spending great quantities of time, day and
night, organizing this strike and other
related activities. Thus in the evenings,
besides mass meetings, local bands
perform in Harvard Square, Newsreel
films are shown, students lie in the grass,
talking, relaxing. These casual observers
return home believing only that the
students want an opportunity to skip
classes to play in the spring weather.

Protesting has not been done angrily.
For the most part, the students have
assumed that anyone interested enough
would have read some of the literature,
and therefore know why things were
happening. There were no verbal
denunciations, no "obscene" screaming,
only the chants of the strikers, shouted to
the beat of drums (improvised from
neighboring trash barrels). A number of
times the strikers raised their voices in
song, declaring that they wouldn't be
turned around.

If adamancy or anger has come, has
arisen, it has done so because someone
failed to be informed, and then criticized
the strike. On these issues which seem
clear enough from the student viewpoint,
hesitancy requests anger. (It might here
be noted, that the faculty relegated

ROTC to an extra-curricular,
non-University activity, which was
initially supported by the Corporation;
further, the administration has asked the
local courts not to prosecute the
occupiers of University Hall in agreement
with another demand).

Intolerance, which has often been
charged against SDS here has no
relevance. Everyone has recognized the
rights of the other to take the action
deemed necessary. The disagreements
have come not on the issues, but the
tactics, and everyone has essentially done
that which agreed with his conscience.

But the overwhelming effect of this
strike, this call to action by the students,
was the development of an emotion
embryo, a commitment lodged in the
heart of the students, not only towards
the attainment of their ends, but to each
other. No longer on the campus of
Harvard will students be individuals,
isolated by the classroom or the book.
Only with great efforts will students be
fragmented against themselves. In all of

this activity, the occupation and
subsequent use of police the picketing,
marching, mass meetings, and
organizational work, the students
involved have acted as a community of
concerned, they have jeopardized their
own interests for the larger interests of
the University. Together they have done
this, without coalition, and in larger part
without compromise. Concern for the
wavering moderates gave way to action
deemed necessary for the attainment of
the goals. The students have made every
attempt to remain united.

Students Show Sympathy for Strikers from Rooftop.

photo by mike russell

Harvard has great significance for the
University of Virginia. With a largely
liberal student body, it has been able to
maintain a peak of activity somewhere
below the levels of Columbia. Duke or
San Francisco State. Because the student
body, and even many faculty are vocally
sympathetic, the student activists have
remained united it their activities
obtaining their ends by pressures upon
the administration. At Virginia, however,
there is a largely conservative-apathetic
student body, with a small liberal
community. This community, while
having presented a number of "demands"
through "channels," is rapidly discovering
that the channels aren't particularly
receptive, and do not really work. Thus
the likelihood of further, escalated action
seems inescapable. Millard Cass,
Undersecretary of Labor, at a recent
University "Founder's Day" symposium,
described what he calls "extremists" as
those people who were once reasonable
and willing to discuss the issues, but who
were met with apathy or silence and as a
result moved to the extremes.

Many students at the University have
attempted, especially during the last three
months, to be reasonable. And many have
felt that their pleas fell on deaf ears or
were returned with silence. Among those
who have been more active the feeling
predominates that if a Harvard or a
Columbia, or a Duke is to be avoided,
some substantive compromises, in
relation to the demands presented will
have to be made. Growing numbers of
students at the University feel that the
Administration may have to jeopardize
the favor of the state legislature in order
to accomplish these goals. (It might be
noted, that Churches across the country
the "repositories of morality," have taken
stands which in many instances have
severely reduced their income and yet
they are still operating). Sentiment
among a number of groups indicate that
the University can either take those steps
which will bring the desired ends closer
or be subjected to the ordeals of these
other universities, which everyone will
deplore. Mr. Cass might well ask, "Are
you listening Virginia?"

photo by frank blechman