Dean Repudiates Proposal To Support Tenant Group

Robert H. Ebert, dean of the Faculty of Medicine, has refused the request of several medical students, faculty members, and workers that he actively intervene with the Harvard Corporation on behalf of tenants in University-owned buildings near the Med School.

Ebert rejected the request, he said, because "the most appropriate people for the University to deal with are the tenants themselves," and tenants were not among those who presented him the request.

Thirty of those who submitted the request railed briefly outside Ebert's office yesterday afternoon before receiving mimeographed word of his decision. Ebert was absent from his office at the time.

The tenants' association contends among other things that presently unoccupied apartments remain unrented by University order, despite promises by Med School administrators that vacancies would be filled. The unrented homes are in areas that have been earmarked for demolition and construction of the Affiliated Hospitals Complex, and tenants charged that their neighborhood is being destroyed.

Ebert acknowledged that these apartments were still not being rented, and said that University policy could not change until a relocation plan had been approved by the tenants.

But Howard B. Waitzkin, a second-year medical student, said that "a subcommittee on housing designated by the dean and composed partly of tenants' representatives endorsed definite relocation policies three months ago."

One student claimed that Ebert has misconstrued the demonstrators' position of support for the tenants, as a claim to represent them.

"That's an insidious statement; the dean is trying to separate us from the people we support," he said.

Robert S. Parks, president of the Roxbury Tenants of Harvard Association, said of the demonstrators, "We welcome and actively seek their support."