HUC to Poll Students On Draft, Class Ranks

The Harvard Undergraduate Council (HUC) is making plans to poll the entire student body on opinions about the draft and, specifically, about the use of rank-in-class to determine a student's eligibility for deferment.

The referendum stems from an effort last Spring to have the University reconsider its policy of supplying students with their rank-in-class. The students backing the campaign contended that rank-in-class information was "educationally harmful" because it spurred unnecessary competition.

Local draft boards use the rank-in-class information, along with scores on national draft tests, to decide whether a student should be deferred.

The HUC's poll, according to Louis G. Maisel, the HUC's secretary, will ask two kinds of questions: first, what should the University's policy be towards supplying rank-in-class information; and second, how did students use their ranks this summer, when Harvard told everyone in which quarter of the class he stood. The poll will be "wideranging," Maisel said, and the HUC will try to make it open-ended to allow a place for as many ideas as possible."

Results from the referendum will probably be tabulated long before the Faculty gets around to discussing the issue at one of its monthly meetings. Dean Ford, who promised backers of last spring's campaign that he would raise the issue, said yesterday that the Committee on Educational Policy (CEP) had already discussed the draft, but had reached no concensus on a new policy.

The Faculty, Ford said, will not receive a recommendation for any changes. Dean Munro will prepare a report on the history of the University's relationship to the Selective Service system with emphasis on last term's controversy and submit it in October to the Faculty; the issue will probably be debated in either November or December, when the floor will be thrown open to general discussion.

Ford indicated that members of the CEP were divided not only on possible policy alternatives, but also on the importance of the entire draft question. "A lot of the emotion has gone out of the issue for some people," he said. Legal opinion is also split, Ford added, with lawyers disagreeing over whether the College has the right to stop supplying class ranks.

The HUC's poll will ask students whether they think the ranks should continue to be supplied, or, as the supporters of last Spring's campaign suggested, the College should merely give each student a letter certifying him to be a member in "good standing."

Ford expressed interest in the second part of the poll -- which will show how students used their ranks this summer. "If most students used it, I suppose that would be an indication that most people want it."

The HUC is still preparing the details of the poll, and it may be two or three weeks before the referendum will be conducted. According to Maisel, the polls will probably not ask about Vietnam. "I think we're going to stay away from that one--mainly because it's a political question and not a student-government type thing.