Council Plans Study of Bias; SAE Admits Admission Bar

Membership discrimination in College organizations will come under Student Council examination soon, William D. Mulholland, Jr. '50, co-chairman of the Student Council Extra-Curricular Activities Committee, announced last night.

Simultaneously, Peter N. Tugman '50, president of Sigma Alpha Epsilon, the College's only fraternity, admitted that his group is obligated to a policy of membership discrimination.

The national constitution of the fraternity, which the local chapter must follow, limits the membership in effect to "any male Christian of the Aryan race." The local group went on record last spring against the discrimination clause and unanimously voted to work at last summer's S.A.E. national convention to change the provision.

No Action Taken

No action was possible at the convention because of constitutional provisions, but a committee was appointed to study the question, and a vote will be taken by mail ballot sometime next year or at the next convention in the summer of 1951.

Tugman said his group was "satisfied for the time being" and that the discrimination clause would probably be changed "if a well-organized drive were prepared."

"There's a possibility," Mulholland said, "that the Harvard S. A. E. may get into trouble as a group taking orders from outside. The College wants organizations to be autonomous."

Associate Dean Robert B. Watson '37, said yesterday that the College had no precedent in recent years in dealing with undergraduate organizations that practiced discrimination.

Leading the anti-discrimination movement has been the S. A. E. chapter at the University of Connecticut, where college officials have given the chapter until September, 1951 to have the restrictive clause removed from the national constitution. Otherwise, the fraternity will be expelled from its state-owned building and will probably go out of existence there.

S.A.E. officials at Connecticut had "no idea" last night whether or not their drive for a constitutional change would be successful