Twelve Faculty, Administrators Sign Pro-Busing Advertisement

Twelve professors and administrators at Harvard graduate schools signed an advertisement in yesterday's Boston Globe that calls for "the desegregation of the public schools by all lawful means available."

Two of the Harvard signers of the ad said yesterday it would have had more support in the University but that there were problems with deadlines, office communication and the tone of the ad itself.

Jeanne C. Kettleson, assistant dean of the Law School and one of the signers, said yesterday that "the tone rather than the content" of the ad "became the issue" and that its "strident appeal" discouraged several professors from signing it.

"Support existed among the law faculty for the issue, but not the way it was presented," she said.

The ad asks whether Massachusetts will be remembered "for its angry mobs stoning children," and says, "We will not be silent."

"The wording of the ad was deliberately chosen for people to take sides," Steven Bing, one of the drafters of the ad, said yesterday. "The effort was not made to make it so innocuous that we got a thousand names."

Abram J. Chayes, professor of Law and another signer, said yesterday, "I wouldn't have signed it if I didn't think it was appropriate."