Investigation Finds B.U. Violates Rights

The Civil Liberties Union of Massachusetts (CLUM) will issue a report today charging Boston University (B.U.) with violating the rights of both students and professors.

The report outlines the conclusions of a seven-month CLUM investigation of academic freedom at B.U. The report will not be released until this afternoon, but sources involved in the investigation said the report charges that B.U.:

Violates freedom of the press by preventing student fees from financing student publications and requiring a faculty adviser to review articles before they are printed in school publications.

Interfered with WBUR, the campus radio station, by forbidding the station from airing a speech by attorney William Kuntsler critical of B.U. President John R. Silber. The administration later fired WBUR's executive producer, who objected to the decision.

Instructed professors not to comment on a strike by buildings and grounds workers.

B.U. refused to respond to allegations or cooperate in the investigation, John W. Roberts, executive director of CLUM, said yesterday. Roberts would not comment on the contents of the report.

Alan M. Dershowitz, professor of Law and a member of CLUM's advisory committee, disagrees with the report and will file a dissenting statement today. Dershowitz declined to comment last night, but sources said that although he acknowledges that B.U. has at times violated student rights, he objected to some of the procedures and conclusions of the investigation.

Robert C. Bergenheim, B.U. vice president for labor and public relations, yesterday criticized CLUM for not giving the university an advance copy of the report so that officials could prepare a rebuttal.

"The CLUM's wanton disregard of the ordinary decencies in this matter demonstrates its unfitness to judge others on questions of due process," Bergenheim said. "All friends of civil liberty must be saddened by the CLUM's rapid descent into this hypocritical variant of McCarthyism," he added.

Bergenheim declined to comment on CLUM's charges before seeing the report, but in an interview on Monday Silber denied he has restricted the campus newspapers.

"I raised money for the B.U. News and kept them alive for three years longer than they would otherwise have survived," Silber said.

"I lent money to the daily Free Press and worked out an arrangement where they could pay back a huge sum of money--around $16,000--and kept them alive until they finally got on their feet financially," he added.

"So what do they say? They say I've tried to censor the student press--it's a complete lie," he said.