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Graduate Schools Vote to Strike; Faculties Resolve Exam Policies

By Bruce E. Johnson

Members of Harvard's graduate schools gathered in meetings yesterday to add their voices to the growing opposition in American universities to aggression in Southeast Asia and political repression at home.

More than 600 law students voted overwhelmingly yesterday to strike indefinitely to free students for anti-war activity in coming months.

The meeting approved three of the four resolutions passed at Monday's mass meeting, deleting only a phrase in a fourth resolution demanding freedom for Bobby Seale and the Black Panthers.

They called for the faculty "to show support for and participation in this strike" by cancelling classes and exams and granting course credit to students on a pass-only basis.

The Law faculty met for about two hours after the mass meeting and decided instead to allow students to miss their exams and make them up later. It refused, however, to cancel classes or exams, as the student gathering had requested.

Almost 100 law students attended a meeting last night to begin organizing for lobbying and community work in support of legislation introduced in the Senate today which would require with-drawal of all troops from Cambodia in 30 days and from Southeast Asia in eight months.

Thirty law students have registered their willingness to leave the Law School immediately to begin this work, which is being directed from Washington by a group headed by Sam Brown, a former Moratorium organizer.

At a later meeting conducted by members of the Law School Strike Committee, students made plans to establish a central office to coordinate all anti-war projects being conducted at the Law School. The students also voted to distribute leaflets today encouraging all students to strike despite the Law faculty's decision yesterday.

The group also called for a Law School rally at 1 p.m. today to protest that decision.

At a mass meeting yesterday afternoon, 1400 Business School students, faculty, and employees narrowly defeated a three-day strike proposal by a 700 to 685 vote. They decided instead to declare May 12 "a day of concentrated discussion and examination of the issues facing this country."

Other students, however, have saidthey intend to strike even though the motion was defeated. "A large proportion of the Business School is on strike. It's not business as usual," said Allen Minoff, chairman of the Strike Committee, in calling for picket lines this morning.

Several hundred first-year MBA students have withdrawn from the school's management simulation sessions. Many of them have said they will go to Washington tomorrow to speak to their Congressmen.

Yesterday's mass meeting called by a three-to-one margin for withdrawal of American troops from Southeast Asia and "an end to the use of blind force as a means to resolve legitimate disagreement' at home. They also acknowledged "that legitimate doubt exists about the ability of black Americans and other depressed groups to obtain justice."

A collection was taken after the meeting for an advertisement in the Wall Street Journal containing the ratified resolutions.

Six hundred members of the Ed School approved a strike yesterday afternoon, endorsing the resolutions of Monday's mass meeting. The meeting chose a student committee to prepare several, proposals concerning academic changes to be presented to a faculty meeting this morning.

The meeting also voted to exert its "influence in education and related areas toward the end of intolerable conditions at home and abroad that have led us to terminate our normal activities as both a matter of conscience and necessity."

At Hunt Hall yesterday afternoon, the faculty and students of the Graduate School of Design voted support for the demands endorsed by Monday's mass meeting. They adopted Dean May's proposal that exams and other academic work may be deferred until autumn.

The Design School gathering also decided to protest their administration's failure to rehire Chester W. Hartman as assistant professor of city planning, allegedly for political reasons. They will picket the 13th Annual Urban Design Conference which begins today at Memorial Hall.

Public Health

At a meeting on their Boston campus 132 students and faculty at the School of Public Health voted to strike Friday in sympathy with the demands approved at Monday's mass meeting. They also created a committee to ask Richard H. Daggy, acting dean of the school, to call a mass meeting and issue a statement on the Strike.

The students of the Divinity School, also endorsing Monday's demands, declared a strike and asked yesterday that the faculty of the Divinity School make final papers and exams optional for those students "participating in political activity and desiring pass-fail course credit." The students also requested the abolition of the IV-D deferment.

Yesterday evening, the Divinity School faculty approved the request for optional exams and pass-fail credit. They also voted to hold a two-week recess this autumn prior to the November elections to allow students to work for anti-war candidates.

About 100 teaching fellows met this afternoon in Emerson 105 and voted to support the strike demands, by refusing to grade exams or term papers.

The teaching fellows also discussed ways of implementing the strike throughout the community as well as on a departmental level, and established a steering committee.

At the Faculty meeting an hour later, Sam Bowles, assistant professor of Economics, read the teaching fellow's statement, and then yielded the floor to Arthur MacEwan, assistant professor of Economics.

MacEwan rephrased the statement to apply to the entire Faculty, but in the ensuing vote, his resolution received only 11 votes.

Bowles said last night about the miniscule support of the resolution. "This is a very strong indictment of the degree to which the Faculty is out of touch with the students."

At a meeting in Sanders Theatre this morning, about 100 students and faculty of the GSAS met to discuss ways of implementing the strike. The meeting reached a climax when a motion was introduced to approve the strike and to expel from the meeting all those who did not support the strike.

At this point, a large number of people left the meeting, and it broke up soon after without a formal vote on the strike.

Medical Area

A mass meeting of employees and students in Harvard affiliated hospitals and the Harvard medical area last night adopted the four strike demands and approved a strike.

The meeting modified the demands to include a condemnation of "the murder of students by national guardsmen at Kent State" and the "clear-cut Presidential policy of intimidation and prevention of expression."

The meeting also joined first year medical students in calling on President Pusey to "shut down the University for the remainder of the week" and to "issue a statement unequivocably condemning Nixon's action in Cambodia and Southeast Asia."

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