Dean Epps Grants SDS Partial Convention Permit

Dean Epps told leaders of SDS yesterday that he will grant SDS a permit today to use University facilities for the National Convention Against Racism beginning at 3 p.m. Friday, March 31, and lasting until Sunday, April 2.

SDS had originally requested the use of University meeting rooms from the morning of Thursday. March 30 until April 2. Bonnie F. Blustein '72, an SDS member who met with Epps yesterday, said that the convention will begin at Harvard on March 30 despite Epps's denial of a permit beginning that date.

Epps said that his main concern in granting the permit was the keeping of order at the convention. He said he was satisfied with SDS's assurances that no disruptive activities would occur during the convention.

Epps told SDS that he could not grant a permit for March 30 and 31 because classes will be in session on those days. He said that a long-standing--though unwritten--Faculty practice did not allow conventions to begin while classes were in session.

Epps said that any exceptions to this rule had to be approved by Dean Dunlop after consultation with the Faculty Council and the Committee on Houses and Undergraduate Life.

Epps expressed alarm at MIT's decision Friday to turn down SDS's application for rooms on the MIT campus for meetings for the first two days of the convention.

Louis Menand III. assistant to the provost at MIT, said the application had been refused because the MIT administration found the group to be "inappropriate to host a national convention" due to their leafletted and demonstrated decision to keep people from speaking."

MIT has no conflict with classes on March 30 and March 31 because those days fall during a recess.

Epps said that Harvard's granting of permission to SDS had been flavored by political consideration "Harvard continues to respect its traditional freedoms where groups can have meetings and where the granting of rooms by the University does not imply endorsement of the view of those groups." Epps said.