CRR and Faculty Dispute Issue of Appeals Board

The Faculty will approve all the proposals for the reform of the Committee on Rights and Responsibilities (CRR) except the proposal to create an appeals board for the Committee's decisions, Faculty and CRR spokesmen said yesterday.

A Faculty subcommittee headed by Stanley H. Hoffmann, professor of Government, met last night with CRR members to discuss the reform proposals that some members of the CRR drew up last December.

"They essentially said everything was all right," Laura E. Besvinick '80, who served on the CRR as a freshman representative, and who helped write the proposals, said yesterday. "They approved of our proposals except for a few details and the issue of an appeals board."

The proposals that Faculty members indicated would easily gain approval include suggestions that equal numbers of students and Faculty members serve on the committee--all with full voting power--and that hearsay evidence no longer be allowed.

A proposal allowing transcripts of CRR meetings to be made public, if both parties agree, should also encounter little difficulty.

If both parties disagree, under the proposals, the CRR would decide whether to make the transcripts public. If both parties agree not to release the record, the committee would not do so.

In addition, the Faculty will probably approve a proposal prohibiting the use of attorneys by either party in a dispute brought before the CRR.

The new structure of the CRR would provide for six students, six Faculty members, one senior tutor and a Faculty member to serve as chairman and vote in case of a tie.

William J. Skocpol, assistant professor of Physics, said the Faculty is "perfectly congenial" to most of the CRR proposals, but looks unfavorably on the appeals board suggestion for a variety of reasons.

"There is a feeling that an appeals board will not better resolve anything," Skocpol said. "If there is a feeling of harmony among the members of the original board, then there is no need for an appeals board. And if there is a dispute among the members of the first group, I see no reasons the same disagreements would not arise in the appeals board."

Skocpol said many Faculty members fear that the formation of an appeals board of the CRR would set a precedent that some might seek to apply to Administrative Board decisions.

"There is much sentiment that such groups would be unnecessary and inappropriate," Skocpol said.

Nicolaas Bloembergen, Rumford Professor of Physics and chairman of the CRR, said yesterday Faculty members believe the appeals board idea is "too legalistic."

"There is a feeling that if you create an appeals board this would be a form of legal escalation--you might as well go to civil court," Bloembergen said