Blacks Criticize Abram; Defend Brandeis Seizure

Black students occupying Ford Hall at Brandeis have charged that President Morris B. Abram "has lied, has dealt in half truths and put on a false front to shroud the entire issue in rumors and phony rhetoric."

The charge was made in a pamphlet dated Monday but not widely circulated until Tuesday. The pamphlet was the first articulate defense and explanation of the black students' demands issued since the takeover of Ford Hall a week ago.

"The issue," the pamphlet said," is immediate implementation of demands the university has been aware of since April, 1968, and which the president has been negotiating since September, 1968."

In other developments, the faculty late Monday approved the establishment of a legitimate Department of African and Afro-American Studies as soon as the black students withdraw from the building.

Yet to be settled is how this department will be constituted and operated. The black students want a black department to have the right "to hire the faculty to staff this department and to engage "consultants on black culture, art ideology and curriculum."

Black Participation

Peter Diamandopoulos, Dean of Faculty, yesterday proposed the establishment of a committee system with black participation to govern the creation of the new department and the appointment of its head.

The new chairman, Diamandopoulos said, will make appointments to the regularly constituted departments.

The black students have not yet responded to Diamandopoulos's letter.

They did, however, affirm that their demands were "not negotiable." In a letter to Abram, black spokesman Randall C. Bailey wrote that "These demands are non-negotiable because they are minimal, they have been negotiated since April 8, 1968, and were for the most part approved but have not been implemented."