A-House Execs Seek to Shutter Eatery Polit Skits

The administration of Adams House has decided to enforce a policy curtailing speeches, skits, and presentations during meals in the House Dining Hall.

The Adams House policy was formulated last fall at a meeting of the House staff. "People in the House complained bitterly about the noise" accompanying the political presentations of last spring, said F. Jackson Bryce, Assistant Senior Tutor of Adams House. Under the policy, all skits, announcements and other presentations of a political or non-political nature must be approved by the Master of Adams House before being presented in the dining hall.

"The idea is not to select some presentations on the basis of any criteria," Bryce said, "the point is to get rid of these things entirely." When asked if he thought the Master would approve any political skits, Bryce said "I assume not." William Liller. Master of Adams House, was unavailable for comment.

The new Adams House policy was tested for the first time last week, when the Harvard-Radcliffe Liberation Alliance presented a ten-minute skit concerning the YAF Counter Teach-In. No attempt was made to stop the skit, but after its completion Bryce approached the performers saying "It's all over. People are sick and tired of people coming in here and haranguing them."

"I just want to tell you there'll be no more political skits in this dining room," he said. Bryce later said he regretted losing his temper, and denied that the policy was a political one. "It has to do with protecting our privacy. The dining room is a private place" he said.

Bryce said that, in the event of any future attempts at such presentations in thedining hall, he would feel obligated by the policy "to tell them to stop,"

When asked if he thought the attempts at curtailing skits in the dining halls represented a threat to free speech, Rev. James E. Thomas, Allston Burr Senior Tutor in Adams House, said, "We have to remember that the dining hall is the place where everybody has to eat. We didn't have any intentions of denying anybody any freedom. But enough people have been disturbed by this to cause us concern. Last year, it got so that you began to dread going to the dining room because you didn't know what you were going to be hit with that night."