Faculty Discusses Informer Clause, Criticisms Will Go to Naval Heads

High Navy Department officials will receive a statement of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences' disapproval of the informer clause section of the Naval ROTC loyalty certificate.

Captain Carroll T. Bonney, professor of Naval Science, plans to tell the Chief of Naval Personnel about sympathies expressed at yesterday's meeting of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences. "The general opinion was that the so-called stool-pigeon clause should be omitted from the certificate in its application to Harvard students," Bonney said last night.

He then conjectured that the Chief of Naval Personnel, Rear Admiral J. W. Roper, may forward the Harvard Faculty's views to Secretary of the Navy Francis P. Matthews. It is believed that if the faculty's opinion is brought to Matthew's attention, he will delete the informer clause.

Bonney believed that "Secretary Matthews would change the certificate not purely because of the Harvard opinion, but because he realized that it is one of those things that was run through without too much thought or importance attached to it. After all, the certificate was intended as a national security measure, not as a means for counter espionage."

ALL NROTC students were required this year by order of Matthews to sing a certificate stating their loyalty to the United States. Included in the paper was the "informer" or "stool-pigeon" clause, which requires the student to name all persons he has ever seen at meetings of certain allergy subversive organization.

"The objections held by the Faculty are about the same as those which have been previously voiced by various student groups," Bonney said, "and that seems to be the general opinion, not merely that of the so-called liberals."

Unaware that the Faculty had already critically discussed the loyalty certificate, representatives of seven Harvard organization met last night and made plans to circulate among the students a petition asking Faculty condemnation of the informer clause as applied to Harvard students.

Faculty opinion was not adverse to the certificate as such, he said, but "only to the so-called stool pigeon clause."

Groups which were represented at the meeting are: the American Veterans' Committee, the John Reed Club, the Liberal Union, the National Lawyers Guild, the Teachers Union, the Young Progressives, and the World Federalists.