Ford Says Faculty Probably Won't Discuss Draft Again This Month

There will probably be no special Faculty meeting later this month to reconsider the issues of the draft and student deferments.

Dean Ford said yesterday that he had received no requests for a special meeting, but that he would wait at least another day before making a specific recommendation to President Pusey. The president is the only person with the authority to call a special meeting.

Speculation about such a meeting followed Tuesday's Faculty decision to table a motion that condemned student deferments as "unjust." On a 141-88 vote, the Faculty cut off all discussion of the issue immediately after the anti-2-S resolution had been formally introduced.

Oscar Handlin, Charles Warren Professor of American History, who introduced the tabling motion, said that the Faculty, as a collective body, should not take a position "on a matter of abstract principle, in either educational, social or political policy." To raise the issue of the draft again this year would require a majority vote to take the original anti-2-S resolution from the table.

Tuesday's meeting left a residue of resentment and dissatisfaction. After the meeting had adjourned, a number of Faculty members milled around inside University Hall discussing the issue. Many appeared unhappy. The swiftness of the Handlin motion, Dean Ford and President Pusey said yesterday, surprised almost all Faculty members, even those who expected that the 2-S resolution would eventually be tabled.

"The vote was a disgrace," Stanley Hoffmann, Professor of Government and one of the sponsors of the draft resolution, said yesterday. "A Faculty that votes against the idea of discussing an idea is a strange bird indeed."

Hoffmann attributed Handlin's tabling motion to an "honest feeling that the Faculty would be split wide open." But, he continued "the resentment that [Tuesday's meeting] leaves behind is fan greater than if we had had a candid discussion."

Michael L. Walzer, associate professor of Government and another sponsor of the draft resolution, said that a tabling motion had been anticipated. "For many Faculty members, the most important question was whether the Faculty constitutes a collective body, and we were prepared to talk about that," he said.

Handlin could not be reached for further comment last night, but David S. Landes, professor of History, who seconded Handlin's motion, said that the purpose of tabling was not only to forestall the Faculty from taking a position but also to prevent a debate.

"I do not believe that this Faculty should debate political issues of this kind as a corporate body," he said in a statement. "Such debate would lead to the politicization of the University, with great damage to its effectiveness as an institution of teaching and research." Landes agreed that the 2-S deferment is unjust, but said that the proper way to protest it "is to write or speak, personally or as a group, to the public authorities and to our representatives in the Congress."

The future of the draft resolution was unclear yesterday. There appeared to be no strong movement to request a special meeting -- though the idea had been considered a possibility -- and the resolution's sponsors were unsure about what would happen at the regular meeting in January.

John Rawls, professor of Philosophy, who introduced the motion on the floor of the Faculty, said if the issue came up again, he would spend more time arguing that student deferments were an appropriate subject for the Faculty to take a stand on.

"Different view of what the Faculty is were important in this," Rawls said. "Some people view the Faculty as a collection of private individuals whose only common interests are the regulations of the Faculty and such things as exams and parietal hours. I think we have broader common interests." Rawls said that 2-S was a Faculty issue appropriate for a number of reason: because teachers help support the deferment system by ranks and grades; because the Selective Service Law is coming up for Congressional review; and because the consequences of the 2-S deferment affect the entire university community, not just individual Faculty members