Judicial Decision May Affect Assembly

The outcome of a legal battle at the University of North Carolina (UNC) to determine the constitutionality of allocating special seats for minority members in students government may affect the status of the Student Assembly at Harvard, whose constitution contains a similar provision.

While the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled last February that the reservation of seats for minority members in the student government is unconstitutional, the State of North Carolina is contesting that decision because a retired judge substituted for one of the regular judges.

A law Congress enacted two months before the court's decision does not permit such a substitution.

Hugh J. Beard Jr., the chief counsel for the plaintiffs, a group of former UNC law students suing UNC for reverse discrimination, said yesterday no one knows how the court will resolve the dispute.

He added that the appeals court clerk sent him and the defendant's lawyers letter asking them what the court should do now that it has learned of the Congressional action.

The Student Assembly's constitution, which over half the students ratified in a college-wide referendum in 1978, reserves seats for women, Hispanics, Asian-Americans, blacks, native Americans, and Puerto Ricans.

The appeals court said UNC's students government with its minority clause violated the Fourteenth Amendment and the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

Title VI of the Civil Rights Act prohibits institutions receiving federal funds, such as Harvard, from discriminating on the basis of sex or race.

Daniel Steiner '54, general counsel to the University, said yesterday, "It's very hard to say what effect the decision will have. I haven't been following the decisions."

Dean Fox said yesterday one reason the University only "provisionally" recognized the assembly "is that this issue has to be worked out before we can fully recognize the assembly."

The February decision was the result of several appeals and counter-appeals which reached all the way up to the United States Supreme Court. However, in light of the Bakke decision, the Supreme Court sent the case back to the appeals court for reconsideration, and the appeals court instructed the district court to reverse its prior decision and rule in favor of the plaintiffs.