Herrnstein Protesters Banned at Iowa

The University of Iowa Administration has stripped the Worker-Student Alliance (WSA) of its status as a recognized student organization because of WSA's protest last week against visiting lecturer Richard J. Herrnstein, professor of Psychology.

The Iowa Administration also labeled the WSA a front for the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS), an organization which had its university recognition lifted last year.

Simon Piller, leader of the WSA, told the Crimson by phone last night that he "expected the university to dissolve the WSA at some time during the year; it was just a matter of time."

"The Herrnstein confrontation was the perfect situation allowing the Administration to pin us against the wall and take away our status," Piller added.

SDS was banned from the campus last December after a demonstration against the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA). At that time, 150 student members sat in at the DIA's headquarters where an officer was recruiting for the military.

According to Howard N. Sokol, assistant to the Iowa provost, the sanctions against both groups expire April 7.

In a front-page article written in Iowa's largest daily. The Des Moines Register, Sokol is quoted as saying:

"Sufficient handbills and evidence of verbal statements equating the SDS and WSA have been presented to this office to warrant the application to WSA of the sanction of nonrecognition applicable to SDS."

Piller, a sophomore at Iowa, said last night. "There is not one of 20,000 students here that has not at least heard of the Herrnstein issue and our protest against his ideas is having a tremendous effect on people and colleges all over the state."