Teachers Union, Student Fellowship Testify in Admission Policy Hearing

While presidents of colleges throughout Massachusetts presented the case for existing admissions practices, representatives of the Teachers Union and the Student Intercultural Fellowship, a metropolitan organization founded at Harvard, offered evidence of discrimination before the Legislative Committee on Education at the State House.

Expressing the Teachers Union viewpoint, F. O. Matthiessen, professor of History and Literature, and president of the Cambridge local, said last night that a bill providing for a commission to investigate discrimination in state colleges would be a "perfectly natural extension of the Fair Employment Practices Commission philosophy in the realm of education."

"Students should be selected on the basis of educational aptitude," he said.

The bill would also eliminate use of racial or religious grounds in choosing faculty members. "Anyone who has been in education for any length of time would know that discrimination does exist in that area," Professor Matthiessen said.

Only documented proofs of unfair practices offered at the hearing were made by the Student Intercultural Fellowship. Ernest M. Howell '47, co-chairman of the group, said last night that the Fellowship submitted a survey of discrimination in business and secretarial schools in Boston.

"We think that a fair employment practices commission will uncover enough cases to prepare a foundation for effective legislation combating the quota system," Howell said.