Medical Faculty Refuses To Pass Rights Statement

The Medical School Faculty refused Friday to accept an interim resolution on rights and responsibilities prepared by a student-faculty committee. The resolution would have empowered the committee to discipline any member of the Med School community-including faculty members-who it found had violated the resolution.

Instead, the faculty voted almost unanimously to have the Administrative Board refer to the committee all disciplinary matters involving obstruction of "essential University functions" and to rely heavily upon its recommendations.

However, the Ad Board-which in cludes no students-still retains the final disciplinary responsibility-subject to faculty approval in cases of expulsion.

The committee-which includes 13 students and 13 faculty members-drafted the resolution at the request of Robert H. Ebert, dean of the Med School.

The committee's resolution is essentially similar to the resolution adopted by the Faculty of Arts and Sciences last Spring except in two cases where it broadens the criteria for violation.

The resolution says that any member of the Med School community who "shows unresponsiveness to petitions or breaks agreements" or who "fails to give prompt response to grievances" violates the "basic rights of others" and is subject to disciplinary action.

Citing the vagueness of these passages in particular, Manfred J. Karnovsky, Harold T. White Professor of Biological Chemistry, said the faculty refused to accept the resolution because it was a "very hurried, shoddy codification which could lead to trouble."

Karnovsky said he was "against any immediate assumption that a faculty member should be subject to discipline by a student-faculty committee." Except for this, however, he said "the faculty accepted the spirit of the resolution" and agreed that "student discipline should be in the hands of students."

Karnovsky, who is a member of the Ad Board, said that "from the favorable tone of the faculty meeting the Board would find it extremely difficult not to accept the recommendations of the committee on student discipline,"

The provision for disciplining faculty members-which would only amount to censure-was included because "if people deserve to be disciplined in an academic community it should apply equally to everyone and not just students," Leslie D. Schlessinger, a second year medical student and committee member, said.

The committee plans to rewrite the resolution and resubmit it to the faculty, Schlessinger said. He said the rewritten version would also apply to the entire Med School community.