Group Opposes Kent State Gym

Several Harvard students have formed a committee to oppose the construction of a gymnasium on Kent State University's Blanket Hill, where four students were shot and killed by National Guardsmen during an antiwar protest on May 4, 1970.

William August, a first-year student at the Law School, said yesterday the Committee for the Kent State Defense Fund will try to raise money for several hundred persons arrested in recent months while protesting the gym's construction.

August said the committee sent a letter yesterday to Secretary of the Interior Cecil Andrus, asking that he "immediately declare Blanket Hill a national historical landmark."

"If it's declared a federal national landmark, that will give tremendous momentum to the efforts to prevent construction of the gym and desecration of the site," August said.

Thegroup, which now has five members, will try to get students and others from the Cambridge community to go to Kent State's Ohio campus and demonstrate against the gym, August said.

He added that the committee will hold an organizational meeting November 2.