Kent 25 Call for Support; Only Med School Responds

"There are a lot of people in this country who are saying that the vast majority of students are apathetic, and that the few who aren't are out throwing bombs. We have to prove those people wrong," Luigi Gorini, American Cancer Society Professor of Bateriology and Immunology at the Harvard Medical School, said Friday.

For this reason Gorini, along with Edward A. Kravitz and David D. Potter, professors of Neurobiology, responded to the appeal for support from students at Kent State University as reported in the New York Times of October 21.

Last Friday the three professors organized a meeting of 70 students, faculty, and staff members at the Medical School which sent a telegram of encouragement to the Kent State student government.

The telegram stated, "We are appalled" at the fact that 25 Kent students and faculty have been indicted by an Ohio grand jury in connection with the disorders at the school last May, while National Guardsman have been "exonerated" of guilt in the deaths of four students.

The telegram further urged that the Justice Department impanel an "impartial federal grand jury" to investigate last Spring's events and the work of the state grand jury.

The telegram closed with the words, "We all support you in your struggle justice." According to Potter, people who attended Friday's meeting plan to raise money for the Kent Legal Defense Fund. to circulate petitions to be sent to U.S. Attorney General John Mitchell, and to publicize the Kent students' Speakers' Bureau.

However, neither Potter nor Gorini was optimistic about how much or how long students in general would support the Kent students' protests. Potter said that only one-third of Friday's participants were students, and that most of them were enrolled in the GSAS as opposed to the regular medical program.

"When I spoke with a Kent student on the telephone Thursday, my emotional reaction was that the students there are very lonely. They came back to school this fall hoping to lead normal lives after the terrible experiences of last spring. Then right away they had these indictments dumped on them.

"Probably right now they feel as if they've been forgotten. Judging by the small response we received at the Med School, despite our advertising, and the lack of response from the other schools, I would say that they're probably right."

According to John Corliss, a spokesman for the Kent student government, the mood of the campus was improved by a Civil Liberties Action Day last Friday, when a rally drew 3500 people, "more than we ever had any time last May." Speakers included radical writer

I.F. Stone and Eva Jefferson, black student body president at Northwestern University.

Corliss further reported that as of Sunday afternoon 30 telegrams and 40 telephone calls of support had been received at Kent, as well as a number of small donations for the Legal Defense Fund.

Corliss also cited the fact that Kingman Brewster, president of Yale, has called upon the alumni of the Yale Law School to support the Kent 25, who have "become a symbol of civil liberties under attack."

However, Corliss said, "There is no way at all of telling how much is actually being done in the way of supportive action on any of the campuses. It's possible that there has been very little follow-through. We're planning on sending out 40 speakers who'll appear at rallies and such on request. I don't know how much demand for them there's been so far."

"But I do think that this particular cause has received so much publicity that if there isn't a widespread response and concern, people will say, 'See, no one cares.'"

"We're willing to do a lot," he said, "but the Kent students were very anxious that whatever got started would be a student-run thing. We passed on the word about what the problems were and what kind of actions the Kent people were suggesting, but the students are going to have to take if from there. I just don't know."

George Waid, Higgins Professor of Biology, denied last night that the apathy being displayed by Harvard students was typical. "Students are discouraged. There seems to be a conscious national campaign to turn students off, to convince them that the situation is hopeless. So far the campaign has succeeded in the in the realm of politics.

"However, other schools are more active. For example, there was a rally at Tufts last Friday to support the Kent protests. Harvard had better look to its buttons."