Group to Check Hartman Firing

Design School students who have protested since February Chester W. Hartman's dismissal as assistant professor of City Planning got results Friday.

The Harvard Graduate School of Design Association at that time rejected the administration's explanation that Hartman's competence in the field of housing is too narrow, and set up a three-man committee to investigate the reasons his contract was not renewed for 1970-71.

Protesters, who have withheld tuition and written letters to alumni, allege that Hartman was fired for his radical political activities. He was a member of last Spring's Committee for Radical Structural Reform and has attacked Harvard's housing policies.

The investigative committee will include one member selected by students, one by Dean Maurice D. Kilbridge, and one which Kilbridge and students will choose together. None will be a student, teacher, or employee at GSD.

Different from Kilbridge's Plan

This plan contrasts with a suggestion made by Kilbridge that the committee include William W. Nash '50 and Francois C. D. Vigier, two professors of City Planning generally believed to be opposed to Hartman's reappointment.

GSD students also succeeded in turning the 13th Annual Urban Design Conference last week at Memorial Hall from planned discussion of mass-industrialized housing towards political problems.

Before adjourning, the approximately 350 businessmen, planners, architects, and GSD alumni at the Conference endorsed a motion calling for unilateral withdrawal from Southeast Asia and an end to political repression at home.

They resolved that no progress could be made in industrializing production of housing "until all war is ended" or "in the atmosphere of racism and repression which presently pervades the public and private sectors."