Professor Howe Defending Paper In Libel Appeal

Mark DeWolfe Howe '28, professor of Law, is fighting to reverse a $60,000 libel decision against the staff of a small civil rights newsletter in Mississippi.

The decision was handed down by an Ashland, Miss. judge Aug. 12. Howe said Monday that an appeal will soon be heard by the Mississippi Supreme Court and, if lost there, will be carried to the U.S. Supreme Court.

"The newspaper called a Negro school principal an 'Uncle Tom' and a 'stoogo' last spring. He lost his job soon afterwards and sued for libel and slander damages," Howe explained. "But such a suit by a public official was clearly ruled out by the Supreme Court in New York Times v. Sullivan. The trouble with Ashland is that they say they don't know anything about the decision, don't like it and don't want to hear about it."

Howe and John L. Saltonstall Jr. '38, a Boston lawyer were sent to Ashland in August by the Lawyers' Constitutional Defense Committee. When they lost the case there they agreed to stick with it.

Howe, who was called "the little lawyer" by the civil rights workers and Negro parents who mimeograph the paper weekly, argued the constitutional aspects of the case.

"The paper, the 'Freedom Train', split the town in half with its campaign," he said. "The school principal come into the trial asking for $675,000 in damages and the courtroom was packed each day by whites friendly to him and Negroes hostile."

The paper was founded in the summer of 1964 by Peter Cummings '66, who published the Southern Courier with several other students last summer.