Word: dow
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Harvard's nearest brush with disintegration occurred last fall when over 200 students sat-in and imprisoned a Dow Chemical Company recruiter. The immediate situation and the later disciplinary response were both potentially volatile, but in the end both reached settlements satisfactory to the great majority of everyone involved. If a few radicals had hoped the Dow episode might ignite student demands for structural change in the University, they were disappointed. If they expected that participation at the sit-in would radicalize the students' outlook on society, they failed. For Harvard authorities did not permit the confrontation to become angry...
...communication among students, Faculty, and Administration was more free-flowing than at any time in recent years. These factions shared a common hope that the Dow controversy would not expand into a larger conflict. Very few people wanted the issue to tear up the campus, nor did anyone wish to leave Harvard despite its imperfections. Barrington Moore Jr., Lecturer on Sociology and a demonstration supporter, wrote...
...recommending probation for 74 Dow demonstrators but severance for no one, the Administrative Board meted out a sharp warning rather than real punishment. As Dean Ford said at the time, "The imprisonment itself was reprehensible; but there are a number of mitigating circumstances for the demonstrators, and so I would like to see the most lenient possible action that will serve as an effective deterrent against this sort of thing in the future." The Board's decision passed the Faculty by a 5-1 margin and proved to be a practical and politic decision. It balanced leniency with a reaffirmation...
...Dow episode indicated how the Faculty, practically speaking, can function only as a ratifying body during such a crisis. As one Economics professor recently remarked: "We're all amateurs at parliamentary procedure; we have no caucuses, no ad hoc committees to handle crises, no system of feasible debate...
There is no indication in this statement, nor in the opinions and actions of the vast majority of students during the remainder of the school year, that reconstruction or revolution in the University structure is a serious goal. No student has yet defied the Dow julgment with similar obstructionist tactics, despite the Administration's refusal to spell out guidelines on unacceptable demonstrations and their consequences. Dow was primarily a symbolic protest aimed against the Vietnam horror and against the unresponsiveness of established authority to anti-war demands. The students' basic target was the war, not the University...