Law Committee Rejects Two-Day Reading Period

The Continuing Committee on Legal Education at the Law School has turned down part of a petition signby 215 students requesting the cancellation of classes on January 16 and 17 for second-year students.

The rest of the petition, which the Committee will consider early next year, urges that a week-long reading period be instituted in May for second- and third-year students. Presently, the School's only reading period is for first-year students before Spring finals.

The petition was originally presented to the Joint Student-Faculty Committee for consideration at its meeting on Monday. The Committee's chairman, Clark M. Byse, professor of Law, said yesterday that all the Committee's student members considered the proposal a "very useful thing."

At its Monday meeting, William L. Bruce '46, Secretary of the Law School, informed the committee members that Acting Dean A. James Casner had met their request for a review of the School's financial aid policies by setting up a four-man committee.

The committee's members are Andrew L. Kaufman '51, professor of Law and chairman; Bruce; Vern Countryman, professor of Law; and James Vorenberg '49, professor of Law. The committee will hold its first meeting on December 26.

The Joint Committee will meet with the members of the Committee on the Placement Office in early January. Why the Office does not assist students in securing jobs during the summer after their first year will be one of the issues discussed.

In other developments, Countryman is distributing to law schools a letter by the American Civil Liberties Union on Selective Service Director Lewis B. Hershey's recent directive.

The letter reads in part: "This is not the first time that General Hershey has sought to misuse the draft law to make it serve as a possible reprisal against students protesting our involvement in the Vietnam war. A previous attempt was blocked by court order in 1966.