Tufts Students Persist In Second Day of Protest

MEDFORD--More than 200 Tufts undergraduates yesterday continued their occupation of the university's main administration building, which they entered noon Wednesday to protest President Jean Mayer's decision to deny tenure to a popular junior faculty member. The number of protesters in and outside the building swelled to more than 500 during the day. Student representatives said yesterday evening that they would stay a second night, and until Mayer reversed his decision.

Mayer and several deans were unable to enter the packed Ballou Hall yesterday morning, but the officials were allowed in for a 2 p.m. meeting with eight student representatives. The meeting lasted for about two hours, and Tufts senior Daniel Poor said afterward that Mayer held firm on denying sociologist Peter Dreier tenure but was considering proposals to alter radically the university's tenure process by allowing more student input.

As he was leaving the building's grounds around 5 p.m. Mayer told a group of students. "People aren't given tenure on the basis of how loudly they can shout into a microphone."

Last spring, the university's Tenure and Promotion Committee recommended Dreier--a self-proclaimed social activist--for tenure, but in May Mayer overturned the decision. Dreier's appointment ends at the end of the semester.

About 25 Harvard students also appeared early yesterday afternoon at the rally and led chants, made speeches and presented the protesters with a petition from Harvard students supporting Dreier, one Tufts demonstrator said.

Protesters chanted, "Jean Mayer, we're on fire! We want tenure for Peter Dreier!" and sang sons from Bob Marley and the Beatles.

As the lyrics "No woman, no cry" filtered through the air, protesters inside the administration building slept ate, did homework, or simply talked about what they were doing.

Food donations from a local bakery and the university's dining services have kept the protesters well fed thus far, one student said.

The sit-in was conceived, planned, and implemented in one week, spokesman Jan Meriwether, a graduate student in public policy and citizen participation, said yesterday.

The organizers said this type of protest was the only recourse left after Mayer had refused for a full year to meet with students about Dreier's tenure.

Because of the wide variety of support which had poured in for Dreier, students had felt confident that the professor would be rehired. "All of January there was a sense that Mayer would reverse his decision," Meriwether said.

But as the end of the year drew closer, students began to realize that Mayer was not going to change his mind, and in March there was a resurgence of campus activity, she added.

Last Wednesday the organizers began to meet and discuss the sit-in, and on Friday they circulated notices of the rally outside the administration building.

The protesters said they were confident that Mayer would reverse his decision, citing a recent case at Brandeis University in which Brandeis President Marver Bernstein reversed his veto of tenure recommendation following extensive student protests.

As Meriwether said, "These kids are real committed.