Pusey, Monro Ask Student Draft Exam

President Pusey and Dean Monro yesterday urged the use of a Selective Service qualification test as a basis for student deferments.

They endorsed a request made recently by the American Council on Education that the Selective Service System immediately reinstate draft criteria used during the Korean War.

Pusey and Monro feel that a national test would be "fairer." It would probably mean that fewer Harvard students would be drafted, since competition would be on a nation-wide basis rather than having Harvard students competing among themselves for class position.

During the Korean War deferments were based on either students' rank in their class or their score on, a special attitude test administered by the Selective Service without regard to their field of study. In an interview yesterday, Monro said the tests "were a rough-hewn way of doing it, but they worked pretty well. The public accepted and understood them during the Korean War."

The ACE made the request in recent letters to Lt. General Lewis B. Hershey, director of Selective Service, in a plea that he provide local draft boards with "orderly procedures" for the classification of students.

John F. Morse, director of the Council's Commission on Federal Relations, sent three letters to Hershey in December.

He asked for a statement clearing up "confusion on both the rights and responsibilities of students in connection with their draft status."

In the same letter, the Council expressed concern over the 1-A reclassification of four students of the University of Michigan who participated in a sit-in at the Ann Arbor draft board.

In his reply Hershey emphasized that the Selective Service law was amended after the Korean War to provide that no local board should be required to defer any student solely on the basis of a grade on any test or his standing in class or "any other evaluation of that character." He added that this was done to preserve the local boards' authority over draft classifications.

A second ACE letter, sent on Dec. 13, reiterated the request that Hershey issue a statement of "student rights and responsibilities." It proposed reinstatement of the Korean War guidelines for determining student deferments. The third letter, on Dec. 27, renewed Morse's request once more.

"Whatever the merits or demerits of the Korean War criteria, they had general public acceptance. I urge that they be reinstituted immediately," Morse then wrote to Hershey. He added that local draft boards must still make their own determinations, but "unless some guidance is provided them, I fear they will make them in a vacuum."

Between World War II and the Korean War a committee of prominent scientists, engineers, and educators developed the system of examination and class standing to assist local boards in their classification.