Law Faculty Meets Again, Ratifies Five Punishments

After more than 14 hours of meetings in two days, the Law School faculty voted yesterday to approve with only minor changes the Administrative Board's discipline actions against five black law students.

The faculty voted by a margin of 42-7 to sustain the Ad Board's one-term suspension of Gregory K. Pilkington, a second-year law student. Pilkington's suspension-the Board's most severe punishment-was the major issue in the protests and disruption of the last week.

In the other four cases, the faculty voted down motions which would have dismissed or lessened the punishments handed down by the Ad Board. The punishments became effective yesterday.

Philip N. Lee, a third-year law student and president of OBU, was one of the two students placed on probation for his involvement in the OBU building seizures last semester. The other two students were placed on warning status.

The faculty's decision on Pilkington's case came after more than ten hours of what James Vorenburg 48, chairman of the Ad Board, called "very spirited discussion."

Pilkington's case was the only one on which the Ad Board asked the faculty to vote. He was given the most severe punishment of the five, the Board said, because he participated in the Nov. 19 SDS sit-in at University Hall.

In the other four cases, the Ad Board simply reported its decisions without making any requests for faculty action. The faculty let the decisions stand by voting down a resolution for dismissal and a resolution for giving all four students warnings.

It made minor changes in Pilkington's punishments by giving him the right, "in the absence of further misconduct," to reenter the second year in September or in January, 1971. The Ad Board had given him the right to reapply for admission.

The faculty also said that he would not have to pay extra tuition if he returns next year and gave him credit for all the courses he has successfully completed this year.

In its marathon meeting Tuesday, the faculty voted down a resolution whichwould have sent the case back to the Ad Board for further hearings on the grounds that the original hearings were not sufficiently open.

The faculty also spent much of the meetings discussing the possible justifications for the students' disruptions, including the alleged lack of responsiveness by the Administration to the students' demands.

In addition to deciding the cases, the faculty passed two motions which addressed issues raised in the two open meetings with students Friday and Monday.

Student Participation

One motion requests the Ad Board and the Student-Faculty Committee on Covernance to jointly examine the disciplinary procedures of the Law School, including the question of participation by students and faculty in disciplinary decisions.

The other motion took note of the procedure outlined in the February 28 statement of Rights and Responsibilities which would establish a student-faculty commission to monitor complaints, demands, and inquiries that students make to administrators.

The motion requests that the Committee on Governance consider how the Law School might develop similar procedures.

The faculty will diseases the adoption of a statement on rights and responsibilities at its meeting next week.

The decisions on the punishments came three weeks after the Ad Board announced its decisions. The faculty meeting to consider the statements was postponed until last week when two students asked for time to prepare their statements.

At its meeting a week ago Tuesday, a group of students entered the faculty meeting to hear Pilkington read a statement. When they refused to leave. Derek C. Bok, dean of the Law School, adjourned the meeting.

With that disruption began a hectic week of meetings and discussions ranging from the content of OBU's demands to the proper procedures for disciplining students for political violations.

A group of radical law students-all of them white-spearheaded the protests, threatening at one point to disrupt another faculty meeting if the faculty refused to hold an open meeting.

But the students decided not to stop the faculty from meeting yesterday though they continued to express their opposition to the proceedings.