Trustees Deny Offer for Talks About Columbia

Columbia University's board of trustees last night said that it had received no legitimate offer to negotiate from student strikers and would make no comment on prospects for talks.

The Columbia Spectator, the university daily, said last night that it had contacted spokesmen for the trustees, who said that the board had not received any official offer to talk from the Student Strike Coordinating Committee.

The New York Times reported yesterday that Mark Rudd, spokesman for the strikers and head of the Columbia chapter of Students for a Democratic Society, had made the offer because only the board "has the power" to arrange a settlement.

Rudd was reported to have said that President Grayson Kirk was "too intransigent" and other groups or persons lacked authority.

One of those groups was evidently the five-man fact-finding board, headed by Archibald Cox '34, Samuel Williston Professor of Law. The strikers previously refused to talk with the board when it asked representatives to speak.

Rudd was quoted by the Times as saying, "We would like to meet with the trustees in order to begin a settlement. We hope this would be a first step in the effort to settle the dispute." Rudd's comments came at a news conference Saturday.

Over the weekend, Kirk said that a tripartite committee of students, faculty, and administration would be in complete charge of punishments for the more than 700 students involved in disturbances that have tied up the university since April 23.

Kirk thus retracted a statement he made last Thursday, when he claimed that he had final say on all punishments.

At that time, he said, "The recommendation. . .that the president should not increase any penalty sustained or imposed by the joint committee is one that I cannot accept."

Kirk gave no reason for his switch in position. Informed sources at Columbia, however, say that trustees and faculty members urged him to take the softer stand.

Meanwhile, last week, large numbers of Columbia students attended four-hour "make-up" lectures and studied for examinations, even though "formal classes" were cancelled over a week ago. Explained one student: "A 'pass" isn't going to get me into Med School."