Shantytown Defenders Arrested At MIT

Eight MIT students were arrested early yesterday morning when they tried to prevent the administration from dismantling a shantytown students had built two weeks ago to protest the university's investment policies.

The students, members of the Coalition Against Apartheid (CAA), were wakened at 7 a.m. yesterday by the MIT's facilities crew arriving to tear down the shanties. The five or so shanty inhabitants climbed on top of the shacks and were joined by other CAA members as they arrived on the scene.

University administrators told the protesters to leave the shacks within five minutes. When the students did not respond, the MIT police arrested eight on charges of "trespassing after notice" and turned them over to the Cambridge police.

Although the Cambridge district court dismissed ths students with warnings, the MIT administration has not issued a statement on what, if any, disciplinary measures will be taken against the students, said Charles Ball, an MIT spokesman.

"The MIT administration supports the right of the Coalition Against Apartheid to freely express its views," MIT Vice President William R. Dickson said in a prepared statement. "The Coalition, however, has been the sole occupant for 12 days of one of the most heavily used public spaces on campus."

He said that the administration was removing the shanties to allow other groups to have full access to the area.

But CAA members said that the university's decision to tear down the shanties stemmed from its fear that the divestment movement was gaining steam. They said that university's move directly followed a campus-wide referendum which revealed that more than half of the undergraduates, graduate students and faculty members supported divestment.

MIT has an endowment of approximately $850 million, $150 million of which is invested in companies doing business with South Africa.

"The shanties are no longer a symbolic thing," said MIT sophomore Jon Garen, who was one of the eight students arrested. "They are having a real effect. They are actually changing students' opinions and becoming significant."

He said that the university had made no attempt to warn the CAA that it had planned to dismantle the shanties and had done so in "an underhand, covert fashion."

University officials were unavailable for comment yesterday afternoon.