DISC Charges 'Singling Out' Of Demonstrators at Mass Hall

Twenty members of the DuBois Institute Student Coalition (DISC) last night unanimously approved a statement accusing the administration of "selective prosecution" in singling out for possible disciplinary action six of the 16 students who occupied Massachusetts Hall last month.

"It is evident that the Bok administration knows the names of more students, yet has singled out the six," the statement said. "The University has attempted to isolate the leadership of several of the member organizations in the DISC as a means to curb their activity on campus."

"Of the 16 students involved in the sit-in, nine were white and seven were black; yet of the six names submitted to the Committee on Rights and Responsibilities (CRR), only two were white and four were black," the statement said.

The CRR will hold hearings for the six students tomorrow after last week denying the students' requests for postponement of the hearings.

Daniel Steiner '54, general counsel for the University, said last night that the administration has not withheld the name of any demonstrator.

"I can say flatly that the six students who face disciplinary action were the only students for whom we could obtain positive identification," he said. "That is the sole basis for there being six students."

J. Carrell Morris, McKay Professor of Sanitary Chemistry, will present the administration's case at the CRR hearing. The Administrative Board generally handles the cases of individual student actions, while the CRR takes on cases involving student groups.

Student Cross-examiners

Students brought before the CRR can cross-examine administration witnesses, bring their own witnesses and introduce evidence. After hearing a case the committee decides whether to discipline the students involved and what form the discipline will take. The punishments it can impose range up to requiring students to withdraw from the University.

The DISC statement said that the sit-in was not the action of a few individuals, but of the collective membership of the DISC and other concerned students.

Two hundred DISC supporters marched outside Mass Hall May 2 while the 16 students remained inside for five hours in a protest against the planning of the DuBois Institute for Afro-American Research.

The DISC proposals call for an institute that involves undergraduates and is connected to both the Afro-American Studies Department and to the black community.

The chairman of the DuBois Institute Advisory Board had refused to meet with DISC leaders until last Wednesday, when he invited DISC spokesmen to an advisory board press conference.

But the advisory board chairman "refused to allow discussion of some very important issues," DISC spokesman Bruce Jacobs '77 said last week