Brewster's Welcome to Demonstrators May Backfire if Protests Are Violent

(Special to the CRIMSON)

NEW HAVEN, Conn., April 28-Yale's anomalous student strike will be one week old tomorrow-and if the weekend's demonstrations are peaceful, it may be over before next Wednesday.

The strike here is unique because it was precipitated by a non-militant mass meeting, it has no clear set of demands which all those on strike can agree on, and it has active support from both the faculty and the administration.

The Strike, Steering Committee-a coordinating group set up after the Black Student Alliance at Yale (BSAY) and the Third World Liberation Front proposed the strike at a mass meeting last Tuesday-issued a set of demands last week.

However, most of Yale's colleges-residential units like Harvard houses-voted down some of the original SSC demands last week, while supporting the strike.

The BSAY has issued its own set of demands, and the SSC last night unveiled a new set whioh it hopes will be

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more acceptable to most students.

The new SSC demands call for a statement from the Yale Corporation demanding the end of the trial of Black Panther Party national chairman Bobby G. Seale and nine, other Panthers who face charges of murder here.

Other demands include a day-care center for the Yale community, unemployment compensation for Yale workers, Yale-built low-cost housing for New Haven, and a halt to plans for the university's proposed multi-million dollar Institute for Social Sciences.

The Yale faculty voted last week to allow its members to "suspend normal academic functions" and most have done so. Yale president Kingman Brewster has adopted a policy of cooperation with student requests concerning the Seale trial and the massive demonstrations protesting it which are planned for this Friday.

Brewster "Skeptical"

In place of this statement by the Corporation which the SSC demanded. Brewster himself issued a statement Saturday which said that he was"skeptical about the ability of black revolutionaries to achieve a fair trial anywhere in the United States."

In addition, he has responded to student pressure to cooperate with the Panther Defense Committee-a predominantly white group which is organing the weekend's demonstrations-by announcing university plans for emergency medical facilities, food, and housing for the demonstrators, who are expected to number more than 50,000.

Brewster's strategy seems to be one of concentrating on the upcoming protests in the hope that students will be mollified by the university's cooperation and will return to classes after the weekend.

This strategy seems likely to succeed-if the demonstrators remain relatively peaceful. Many students here seem to be losing interest in political organizing, and a rally called by the SSC today drew only about 400 students.

In addition, a meeting of law school students yesterday voted against extending the strike to the law school. The other graduate schools have also been unaffected.

Although SSC spokesman have announced plans for a mass meeting tomorrow night to consider plans for next week, many students intend to go back to class on Monday. But if the demonstrations turn violent, as is widely feared, then Brewster's strategy could back fire.

In the wake of widespread rioting this weekend, Brewster could find himself caught between angry radicals, who claim that the university's statements of concern about the trial are hypocritical and student and faculty conservatives, who might charge that he invited damage to the university by opening its facilities to the demonstrators.

Brewster might then be forced to more drastic measures. As one student observer remarked, "Either we go back to class Monday or they shut the place down officially. There's no in between."