Bailing Out Students

The prolonged incarceration of several undergraduates for their participation in the April 30-May 1 occupation of the site of the proposed Seabrook N.H. nuclear power plant pointed to glaring void in University policy: the absence of any regulations concerning students whose academic standing in courses may be adversely affected by time spent in custody for explicitly nonviolent politically-related activities. The University presently advises such students to appear before the administrative Borad for special consideration on an individual basis but a formalized policy covering all possible instances similar to the experience of the students who occupied Seabrook should be discussed and established.

One undergraduate who had already bailed himself out approached W.C. Burris Young Jr. associate dean of freshmen or bail money for a fellow student who had refused to post ail. Dean Young lent the undergraduate the $100 needed to over bail with the explicit stipulation that the money was a personal loan and did not come from University monies. This accident underscores still another shortcoming in University regulations: namely that absence of any contingency fund that imprisoned students can draw upon should they wish to bail themselves out and lack the necessary cash. The University should also consider the establishment of such a fund for future situations similar to the Seabrook experience.