The Presidents Protest

Indignant Ivy League administrators banded together this week--and one wrote a peeved letter to his faculty--to repel what they viewed as an invasion of privacy by the federal government.

At issue is a federal law, passed in August, that gives students who are 18 years old or older the right to examine their school files. The Buckley Amendment, as it is known, goes into effect November 19, and would cut off aid to schools that bar students access to their records.

At a meeting this week in New York, the Council of Ivy League Presidents agreed unanimously to support lobbying by education groups for a six-month postponement of the law's provisions.

President Bok and Dartmouth President John G. Kemeny both said the law was vague, and Kemeny begged for the postponement "so that its complex ramifications and meanings can be clarified."

At Harvard, Dean Rosovsky delivered a letter to the faculty urging instructors "not to overreact" but to continue to write letters of recommendation for students, which he called "an obligation" of teachers.

The Rosovsky letter was critical of the Washington legislators, noting that no committee hearings had been called on the bill and implying that Cambridge academics would need "amendments and the issuance of workable guidelines" to make head or tail out of the law.

"The legislation does pose severe problems for us," Rosovsky asserted, "and, in my opinion, is not in the best interests of our students."

The fear in academic quarters is that implementation of the law will chill written comment by faculty on students, because students would have access to the comments.

Dean Whitlock was also pessimistic yesterday. "The numbers of Harvard and Radcliffe students accepted at graduate schools will diminish because of this law," he predicted.