Faculty Council Votes to Form Committees on Student Files

The Faculty Council voted yesterday to ask President Bok to appoint a University wide committee to discuss the issues arising from the recent passage of the amended student files law and also to form its own Faculty committee on that law.

Concluding approximately five months of discussion on the files law, the council also agreed to a change directing the council's committee to discuss both the immediate issue of how to comply with the files law, and the larger question of relations between the University and federal' and state governments.

Dean Rosovsky said last night that he had not yet appointed any members to the council's committee on student files but said he would do so "quite soon."

Rosovsky also said Bok has not yet begun to set up the University-wide committee.

Larry D. Benson, a member of the Faculty Council and author of the charge to the council's committee, said last night the charge was an attempt "to set up some kind of machinery on a University basis to deal with the Buckley amendments."

The four-page charge asks the committee to report to the federal government concerning Harvard's intention to comply with the demands of the Buckley amendment.

University Response

Benson said the committee will also establish a procedure by which the University can respond to any proposed legislation dealing with privacy of student files.

The Massachusetts House of Representatives will begin discussion Monday of a bill filed by Rep. Lois Pines which, Benson said, "will make everything in the files public, so the committee must discuss how to deal with new legislation."

Benson said the charge also asked that the committee report to the council on "how deeply involved the federal government is in the University."

"We also want to know in what ways federal legislation now directly affects our conduct in scholarship and teaching," Benson said.