University Will Not Aid Civil Rights Protestors

Harvard and Radcliffe students doing civil rights work in Mississippi this summer can expect no help from their colleges. Niether Harvard nor Radcliffe will guarantee bail or legal help to students jailed in the South, nor will either college issue a statement of support for the civil rights work.

Dean Monro indicated last night that such support "would not be desirable." Before the University could officially endorse the students' actions, he said, "it would have to be involved in the planning, and nobody wants that."

Mrs. Bunting said yesterday that it would be "quite wrong for us, as a college, to guarantee students that no matter what they do down there we'll ball them out." It would be "an awful mistake," she continued, for students to assume that they were in any way protected by the College.

An official statement of moral support, she said, would be "outside our province" and "might handicap things we could do in other ways."

The University would take a different attitude, however, toward the arrest of students working on the PBH project at Miles College, Birmingham, Ala. These students, said Monro, "have a connection" with the University, since their work is sponsored by a "semi-official organization."

Earlier in the day, Catherine D. Williston, associate dean of Radcliffe, told the RGA that the Administration's decision to keep silent does not preclude action by the RGA. Dean Williston said she saw no reason why faculty members of the RGA could not vote for such action.

While neither Administration will take any action to assist students who get arrested, Mrs. Bunting affirmed that "that doesn't mean that as individuals we wouldn't do all we can."