Howe Will Help Review Mass. Anti-Bias Group

Mark De Wolfe Howe '28, professor of Law, will help recommend changes in the state's anti-discrimination commission and may go to Mississippi next summer to provide legal aid for people in the civil rights movement.

Howe will serve with four other scholars and social workers on the committee studying the Massachusetts Commission Against Discrimination. Governor Endicott Peabody '42 created the panel after seven Boston civil rights groups charged that the commission "permitted and condoned" discrimination.

Howe said last night that the committee would complete its report before governor-elect John A. Volpe takes office in early January. "Maybe it will help things get off to a good start," he added.

The committee plans to hold informal meetings with the MCAD sometime this week. Before it makes its report, it will meet with representatives of civil rights groups, with people who have filed claims of discrimination with the MCAD, and with people who have served on similar commissions in other states.

In a nine-page report issued last month, the civil rights groups accused the MCAD of not acting in cases of obvious violation of the state anti-discrimination laws, of being slow to investigate claims of discrimination, and of failing to take any initiative in helping to solve civil rights problems in Boston.

Ergo Propter Hoc?

A spokesman for the governor said yesterday, however, that the new committee was not created to investigate the groups' charges. It is expected, rather, "to study the general problems which face a group like the MCAD and to find ways to change the commission to make it better able to handle its job," he said.

Howe said that although no definite arrangements have been made, he has offered to go to Mississippi to work for the Lawyers' Constitutional Defense Committee, one of three legal groups helping local Negroes and civil rights workers.

"I hope it won't be necessary to send outside legal help into Mississippi again next summer," Howe said; "It's much better to find local lawyers to handle civil rights cases. But if this proves impossible I'm willing to go down and help in any way that I can."