800 Meet at Law School, Discuss OBU Punishments

More than 700 Law School faculty members and students packed Ames Courtroom yesterday afternoon to hear a series of speeches on issues stemming from the discipline actions against five black students involved in the OBU building seizures last semester.

The meeting-which included another 150 students who listened to the speakers from a classroom wired for sound-adjourned abruptly after three hours before discussing all the items on its agenda.

The five-man committee appointed to set up the meeting conferred hastily when students began to ask for an adjournment and announced that it would call another meeting next week-perhaps under a different format.

The overflow crowd was relatively orderly throughout most of the speeches by faculty and students, but several students started to speak unrecognized from the floor when the chair refused to entertain their motion for adjournment.

The students-many of whom protested the faculty meeting earlier in the week-claimed that the dwindling numbers of faculty and students at the end of the meeting precluded "the broad exchange of views" the faculty had intended.

The co-chairmen, Joseph D. Gebhardt, a second-year Law student, and Stanley S. Surrey, Jeremiah Smith Professor of Law, refused to recognize the motion at first, but finally adjourned the meeting after consulting with the committee.

Up to the last 15 minutes the meeting followed smoothly on its planned course as student and faculty speakers discussed a variety of questions about the specific cases and discipline in general.

The committee had intended to limit the discussion to "the general issues reflected by the pending cases," but a number of students-including three of the five black students disciplined-spoke about the cases in specific terms.

Disruptive Acts

Most of the discussion revolved around the question of whether disruptive acts should be punished if they were inspired by justifiable political goals.

The meeting adjourned before the four scheduled speakers could discuss the second topic-what authority should discipline such students for such acts.

Student speakers who opposed the punishment argued that the black students were justified in seizing University Hall because they had acted after exhausting all the existing channels for legitimate demands.

They pointed to the University's subsequent decision to sign two contracts which called for 19-23 per cent minority workers on construction sitesas a tacit admission of its racism.

"Most of us will agree that, but for the action of the black students, the University's practices would not have been changed," said Michael J. Haroz, a third-year Law student.

The students claimed that the responsibility for OBU's seizure rests on the Administration rather than the students.

"Established procedures do not break down as a result of people taking extreme actions; extreme actions take place when the established procedures have already broken down," said John M. Sansone, a first-year Law student.

Faculty members and some students concentrated on what Louis Loss, William Nelson Cromwell Professor of Law, called the "means-ends conundrum."

Loss said in his speech that he was faced with three "profound truths"; the first being the critical nature of race relations and the second being the intolerable nature of coercion in the University. The third truth, he said, was that the first two were irreconcilable.

While stating that "whatever combats racism is to that extent good," Loss said that the University "cannot survive if any group, no matter how noble, can act with coercion."

Charles Fried, professor of Law, pointed out "the moral ambiguities and imperfections" of the situation. But, he said, "we always act in a situation of moral ambiguities and imperfections," and he asked that students abide by the fair procedures of the Ad Board and faculty.

Earlier in the meeting James Vorenberg '48, chairman of the Ad Board, described the procedures the Board had followed in the cases.

Vorenberg said that the three faculty members and three students had equal voices in the decision since the Board decided to be guided by informal votes with students and faculty. University statutes prohibit students from voting on discipline cases.

One of the black students disciplined, Raymond D. Jones, a second-year Law student, also spoke on the Board's procedures and described events which he said were "indicative of the shoddiness of parpose. preparations, and procedures [of the Board]."

The audience seemed to reward eloquence in most of its ovations, applauding both Jones and Loss with enthusiasm.