Law School to Debate Supensions of Blacks

Law School Faculty and students will gather today in an open meeting to discuss a variety of issues stemming from the dispute over the Administrative Board's disciplinary actions against five black students involved in OBU building takeover last semester.

The faculty's decision to call a meeting today came Wednesday night after two harrowing days of confrontations with students and three faculty meetings-one of which was disrupted by students.

After meeting for four hours in Holyoke Center behind locked doors, the faculty reversed its position Wednesday night and acceded to student requests that it delay its review of the punishments until after the entire Law School community had discussed the Board's procedures and decisions.

NEWS ANALYSIS

Today's meeting represents a major victory for the students who decided to stop any faculty meeting which discussed the punishments, but it also represents a victory for the student representatives who attended the evening meeting.

The faculty met for three hours Wednesday afternoon before deciding that it would admit 11 students-three from the Board and eight from the Committee on Governance-to its evening meeting.

The students "made very strong representations" according to Derek C. Bok, dean of the Law Faculty, and the faculty-although till angered and shocked by the disruption-voted overwhelmingly to postpone its consideration of the disciplinary actions.

A five-man committee appointed by Bok to set up the meeting met yesterday and released a tentative agenda for today's meeting in Ames Courtroom. It also announced that Joseph D. Gebhardt. a second-year law student and member of the Governance Committee. and Stanley S. Murray, Jeremiah Smith Professor of Law, will chair the meeting.

Special Efforts

In its statement released yesterday, the committee said that it "hoped that special efforts will be made to confine the discussion to the general issues reflected by the pending cases and not to deal with the cases themselves."

But one student who was invited to speak today said that some students would almost surely discuss the issues raised by OBU in its building seizures.

The committee said that the following would be discussed in order:

"the sources and content of the law so far applied by the Administrative Board, and the procedure so far followed...in the pending disciplinary cases, including a summary of the Board's findings, dispositions, and recommendations:"

the question of whether "such conduct" should be punished, and if so according to what rules and with what penalties;

"the appropriate authority or forum for disciplinary action in cases of this nature or perhaps in general;"

"the procedures followed by the Administrative Board...[including] the question of open or closed hearing."

The students-who stressed throughout the week that their primary goal is to keep the faculty from punishing the students-plan to concenrate on the OBU demands and the legitimacy of the faculty as a disciplinary body.

The students hope that the meeting will reach a consensus against the punishments that is so clear that either the group will constitute itself as a disciplinary body or the faculty will feel compelled to follow its decisions.

While it is highly unlikely that the faculty would accept such a decision-if it came about-it seems probable that it will be strongly influenced by the meeting.

"As every hour goes by people's minds are becoming more and more open," one professor said last night.