Dartmouth Faculty Attacks Selective Service System

HANOVER, N. H., May 31--The faculty of Dartmouth College voted today to oppose the Selective Service's present policy of deferring college students on the basis of grades and class ranks.

In a one-page statement, the professors said this policy "interferes seriously with the educational process." They charged that the present system "inhibits the system of free scholarly inquiry."

The faculty, however, declined to voice opposition to the present Dartmouth policy of furnishing information to local draft boards with the written consent of each student.

The college registrar, Robin Robinson, said he had received no new instructions about answering local draft boards' requests for information about students.

The faculty also recommended that the Dartmouth president and trustees investigate "students" rights in these matter."

Franklin Ford, dean of the Harvard Faculty of Arts and Sciences, said earlier this week that the Faculty will debate next year whether students rank-in-class ought to be made available to local draft boards.

Ford's announcement marked a significant chance in the policy of the Harvard Administration. It had previously maintained that Harvard had an "institutional obligation" to give rankings to students so they might forward them to their local boards.

A Faculty vote to end the ranking would have to be approved by the Corporation, Dean Ford said. But the College is legally free to stop making the ranking he said.

Ford said he sympathized strongly with the view that the rankings are educationally harmful. "A lot of people dislike the rank in class because it's just another competitive element," he added.