Giamatti Denies Letter to Bush An Improper Use of Influence

NEW HAVEN, Conn.--A. Bartlett Giamatti, president of Yale, has denied allegations that he improperly exerted influence by writing to Vice President George Bush--a 1948 graduate of Yale--about a federal civil rights investigation of Yale's sexual harassment grievance procedures.

An article appearing in the October 14 issue of the New Haven Advocate stated that Giamatti "apparently used his influence with...Bush to discourage a federal agency's investigation" of the procedures.

Giamatti said last week that the Advocate article was "very selective" in quoting from his letter to Bush, which he said complained, in general, that the university had been "beset by a tide of federal regulations which burden us with paperwork and subject us to conflicting and...sometimes arbitrary demands."

When Yale officials visited Washington in March, Bush suggested that Giamatti write him about Yale's complaints, Lindsey Kiang, Yale general counsel, said.

Giamatti's objections were "justified," Robert Randolph, regional director of the Office of Civil Rights (OCR) in Boston, said, adding that the review of Yale's grievance procedures began in 1979 when a Yale student alleged sexual harassment by a university physician.

Giamatti also sent copies of his letter, dated March 19, to Terrell Bell, U.S. Secretary of Education, and Boyden Gray, executive director of a federal task force on regulatory reform, which Bush heads.