Harvard Lawyers File Motion To Move South Boston High

Eric E. Van Loon and Robert Pressman, lawyers from Harvard's Center for Law and Education, presented a motion in federal court yesterday asking Judge W. Arthur Garrity Jr. to conduct a U.S. District Court hearing on whether South Boston High School should be relocated.

The two lawyers have been working for more than three years for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), on behalf of the plaintiffs in Boston's school integration case.

The motion was accompanied by 56 pages of affidivits outlining abuses directed toward black students including, in the words of the document, "assaults, racial epithets, and discriminatory treatment."

In perhaps its most serious allegation, the motion claims that "police officials responsible for breaking up interracial fights have held black students while white students continued to hit or kick them."

The affidavits tell of a number of instances in which school staff and policemen heard racial remarks and chants and refused to take any action.

Dr. William J. Reid, headmaster of the school, said yesterday that he found the charges "totally ridiculous." He commented also that he had no idea why the NAACP would want to move the school.

Major Thomas Mulloney, commander of the state police at the school, yesterday denied the charges of the attorneys. He maintained that neither the police authorities in the school, Dr. Reid, nor the South Boston police headquarters have ever received any complaints from black students or parents.

Pressman replied that many students indicated in affidavits that they had complained to Reid, and that black parents, faced with the current conditions, could see no reason to even talk to police.

As a solution to the racial problems that it has outlined, the motion calls for the movement of the high school to what it calls a "neutral location outside South Boston."