Document 57

Date: Mon, 22 Mar 1999 09:15:48 -0500
From: Charles Nesson <nesson@law.harvard.edu>
To: dcutler@harvard.edu, friend@chemistry.harvard.edu, goldfarb@fas.harvard.edu
Cc: jeremy_knowles@harvard.edu,
"berkowit@fas.harvard.edu" <berkowit@fas.harvard.edu>
Subject: Peter Berkowitz

Professor David Cutler
Department of Economics

Professor Cynthia Friend
Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology

Professor Warren Goldfarb
Department of Philosophy


To the Elected Members of the Docket Committee of the Faculty of Arts and
Sciences:

I ask as a fellow member of the Faculty of Harvard that you extend to me a
courtesy.

I stand as a senior faculty friend and personal advisor to Peter, not as
his lawyer. I am not an enemy to any person or office, only to unfairness
and gross insensitivity in the process. I have urged Peter from the outset
to seek nothing but his due process. He asks Harvard even now for nothing
more.

I believe the issues raised by Peter's case are profoundly important to the
Harvard Community. I have urged Peter from the outset to shun litigation if
he possibly can, trusting instead to Harvard's meta process, of which you,
the members of the Docket Committee of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences,
are part.

You are the jury in whose hands rests the threshold question of whether we
should allow ourselves as a community of faculty to consider Peter's case.

I urge you to see opportunity for good in such inquiry. I believe the true
power of law should stem from truth, not force, Veritas - derived from fair
inquiry open to those who must live with it.

The courtesy I ask, beyond that of reading this message, for which I thank
you, is to allow me to speak and respond to you in person as part of your
process of decision.

Respectfully submitted,

Charles Nesson

Advisor to Peter Berkowitz
Wm. F. Weld Professor of Law, Harvard Law School
Director, Berkman Center for Internet & Society at HLS,
http://cyber.harvard.edu/eon
Chairman of '98 Harvard International Conference on Internet & Society,