Radicals Give Ec Hiring Brief To Commission

Several radical groups yesterday submitted to the Commission of Inquiry a detailed brief describing alleged political biases in the hiring policy of the Economics Department.

The Commission has not yet discussed the brief or decided whether to investigate the Economics Department, but Commission chairman James S. Ackerman, professor of Fine Arts, said last night that he thinks "this kind of charge is within the jurisdiction of the Commission."

The brief came in response to a request by Ackerman earlier this week that the groups give the Commission more detailed information on a similar but less specific complaint they filed April 13.

The earlier complaint--signed by SDS, the New American Movement and the Union of Radical Political Economists--asked the Commission to investigate "systematic political biases" in Faculty hiring practices and in the University's policy toward the Afro-American Studies Department.

Ackerman said he told the groups that "we can only take one specific issue at a time and we can't guarantee that we will take more than one before the end of the term."

"I would prefer to investigate the Economics Department first," he said, "because that's what people are talking about the most."

Francis R. Lonergan '72-4, an SDS member who helped draft the initial complaint, said last night that radicals in the Sociology and Anthropology Departments are preparing detailed briefs for submission to the Commission on those Departments' alleged hiring biases.

"I don't think the Commission will take the challenge we've given them," Lonergan said. "They'll refuse to hold open hearings, bury themselves in statistics, and come out with a report sometime next year."

If the Commission decides to investigate the Economics Department, its final recommendations will concern "general hiring procedure, not the Department's decisions on specific individuals," Ackerman said.