B-School Student Fasting to Protest Recent Dismissal

Philipp O.C. Schorsch, a former student at the Business School, entered the fourth day of a hunger strike yesterday to protest his dismissal three weeks ago from the School's Doctoral Program.

Schorsch said yesterday that he would begin eating when the Business School "admits the real reason for my dismissal--an antagonism with my personal behavior and life style."

The Business School Doctoral Faculty voted in closed session on December 14 to dismiss Schorsch from the program. They upheld an earlier decision made by Richard S. Rosenbloom '54, director of the Doctoral Faculty, which based Schorsch's dismissal on lack of academic progress.

Schorsch reiterated his earlier charge that his personal sexual conduct had been a factor in the dismissal.

"When they (Rosenbloom and Lawrence E. Fouraker, dean of the Business School Faculty) found out that I had slept with the 16- and 18-year-old daughters of this Boston doctor, their morals were offended." Schorsch said. "Rosenbloom told me that as a 33-year-old man I should know better. This is what justifies in their eyes my being booted."

Rosenbloom denied in December that he had discussed Schorsch's sexual conduct with him.

Schorsch said that he had learned since December through the 16-year-old girl that Fouraker was acquainted with the girls' father. Schorsch, a German citizen, said the girl had told him last week that her father could get Fouraker to have him deported, if he continued to see her.

He added that shortly before the request was made on October 19 that he withdraw from the Doctoral Program, the father had threatened to "do everything in his might" to prevent Schorsch from getting his doctorate if he persisted in seeing the girl.

Fouraker said yesterday that he had met the girl's father once. He refused to comment on whether he had ever telephoned or written to the father, or whether he had ever discussed Schorsch with him. He said he knew nothing about deportation procedures.

Schorsch said that he will hand out a leaflet today at the Business School explaining the hunger strike. In the leaflet, he maintains that his primary purpose for the fast is not to be reinstated in the Doctoral Program, but rather to question the way "people normally acquiesce to injustice."

"We learn from our infant age onward." Schorsch said, "that however unjustly we feel treated, there is no point in fighting our superiors."

This is the reason, he continued, for the Vietnam war and the murder of the Jews in Germany during the thirties. "This is the reason my mother didn't do anything when she saw the Jews disappearing from our town," Schorsch said.

In the flyer, Schorsch maintains that he could be readmitted into the doctoral program if he were to submit a thesis topic.

Rosenbloom said after Schorach's dismissal that if he were to present an "acceptable" thesis topic his reacceptance would be considered.

"I don't have a list of demands," Schorsch said. "I just want truth and justice to come out." He said that the minutes of the Faculty meeting at which his dismissal was upheld should be released.

Rosenbloom said in December that the content of his meeting was "privileged information."

Schorsch said yesterday that he had begun to feel "a bit dizzy." He said that as long as he is able to stand he would continue to distribute leaflets and discuss his problem with students at the Business School