Bok Is 'Happier' With Blackmun As Nominee for Supreme Court

President's Nixon's latest nominee for the Supreme Court, Judge Harry A. Blackmun '29, seems likely to win the support of law professors who actively opposed Judge G. Harrold Carswell.

[Carswell announced yesterday that he had resigned from the U. S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals to seek the Republican nomination for the Senate seat of retiring Sen. Spessard Holland (D-Fla.).

Carswell said that he was running for the Senate "to join President Nixon in his goals of restructuring our country and its government along Constitutional, conservative lines."]

Derek C. Bok, dean of the Law School and one of the leaders in the anti-Carswell fight., said yesterday that he was "much happier" about Blackmun's nomination than he had been about Carswell's.

Very Competent

"I am not intimately acquainted with Judge Blackmun's opinions," Bok said, "but it is my general impression that he is a very competent judge aboutwhom I feel much happier than I did about Carswell."

"Of course, I would say that it will take a couple more weeks for people looking into his background to get more evidence before I could be sure," he added.

Judge Blackmun, who is a member of the U. S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit, graduated summa cumulated from the College in 1929, receiving his degree from the Law School in 1932. Clement F. Haynsworth Jr., Nixon's first unsuccessful nominee for the seat of former Justice Abe Fortas, also graduated from the Law School.

Not As Conservative

Blackmun, who said Sunday that he is personally opposed to capital punishment, is not considered to be as conservative as either Carswell or Haynsworth.

Bok denied that the Senate's rejection of Nixon's two nominees represented discrimination against Southern candidates. "Right now Justice [Hugo L.] Black is the only Southerner on the Court and he certainly does not fulfill the function the President foresees for his nominee."

"I think we are talking about judicial attitude and philosophy rather than geography," he continued.

He added that he saw a need for a variety of judicial temperaments-"some venturesome and some less so"-on the Court. "But my great concern is that these elements of diversity and variety must be met within qualifications of distinction. Positions on the Court should be reserved for a very limited number of lawyers of the highest promised distinction," he said.