Plugging Up the Leaks

When newspapers publish their most controversial and highly-played investigative stories, the people who are investigated rarely enjoy what they see in print.

At a university, scandals involving students usually come to the attention of administrators, as well as newspapers--as with the cases of alleged financial finagling by student officers in the Model U.N. and the student security patrol last year. In cases like these the University may decide to discipline students who are implicated.

The Commission of Inquiry, a five-member student-faculty panel that investigates complaints within the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, last week took steps to stop what it believes is the "unnecessary embarrassment" caused by media coverage of stories about students "actually or potentially involved" in disciplinary cases.

Concretely, the commission released a statement urging University officers not to disclose the names of such students, and, in effect, urged student publications to "respect the privacy of others."

Commission members refused to say who made the complaints leading to their broadside, and added that their statement was not aimed at The Crimson but only intended to warn members of the Commission and Administrative Board not to discuss current cases with the media.

But Roy N. Gordon, professor of Chemistry and the commission's chairman, said last week that the complaints concerned several investigative articles published in The Crimson last year. One of them--involving Stephen S. Rosenfeld '75, who was required to withdraw from the College for forging Phi Beta Kappa and graduate school recommendations-became nationally known, making the front page of The New York Times.

The commission's statement was purely a counsel to the Administrative Board and other University bodies; it has no power to enforce strictly its attempt to plug press leaks.