Div. School May Finance Draft Resisters' Defense

The Faculty of the Divinity School will probably vote next week to give financial support--and possibly sanctuary in the School's Andover Chapel--to eight students, including seven from the Divinity School, who handed in their draft cards at Arlington Street Church on October 16.

Although School administrators were reluctant to predict the specific policy the faculty would adopt, they were confident that action supporting the demonstrators would be taken.

John L. Burkholder, Victor S. Thomas Professor of Divinity, promised that the faculty will "stand by the draft resisters."

"We will try to give the resisters whatever support they need," said Herbert D. Long, dean of students.

Two student leaders, neither of whom is included among the seven resisters, were more willing to speculate on the faculty's actions.

"It seems pretty sure that the faculty will decide to provide funds for the legal fees" of the seven, Steven H. Hornberger a leader of a group called Divinity Students and Faculty for Peace in Vietnam and a first-year student at the Divinity School, said last night.

According to their lawyers, the seven--as well as one Ed School student who has joined them--will almost certainly be brought to court by the Government.

"There is also a good possibility that the School will agree to offer sanctuary," Hornberger continued. This would mean that federal agents would have to arrest the eight resisters on the altar of Andover Chapel, perhaps with Divinity School students and faculty "trying to keep them from entering," said Samuel W. Brown, another Divinity School student.

The faculty will make its decision after a four-member committee set up last Wednesday "comes up with specific recommendations," Burkholder said yesterday. "Hopefully this will be early next week," he added.

The committee members are Harvey G. Cox, associate professor of Church and Society, Ralph B. Potter, assistant professor of Social Ethics, George H. Williams, Hollis Professor of Divinity, and Helmut Koester, John H. Morrison Professor of New Testament Studies.

All eight resisters handed in their draft cards at a service conducted by Yale chaplain William Sloan Coffin, who took their cards and 272 others collected at the same time to Washington on March 21.

The eight are: Samuel N. Johnson, Robert S. Ervin, James B. Prior, Richard Behn, George G. Whitehouse, Peter Van Allen Hayn, and Lawrence E. Stager, all of the Divinity School, and Samuel J. Miesels, first-year student at the Ed School.

At a meeting of the Divinity Students and Faculty for Peace in Vietnam on Thursday night, other anti-war tactics were proposed, including:

* Bringing North Vietnamese Buddhists to this country for a conference on the war

Visiting Boston area churches to enlist them in anti-war and anti-draft activities--"days of penitence" and sanctuary for draft resisters

* Conducting "beg-ins" to raise money for the North Vietnamese at those churches which will not sponsor anti-war activities

* Holding "speak-ins" interrupting a sermon to present anti-war proposals to the congregation

* Setting up draft counselling centers.

Hornberger said that similar anti-war activities were planned at the Divinity School