Law School Rally, Sit-In Bring About Open Forum

Students and faculty at the Law School will meet this afternoon in an ellort to resolve a conflict over a new grading policy which sparked two days of student demonstrations last week.

Law School Dean James Vorenberg `49 scheduled a 3 p.m. open meeting of the faculty-student committee which submitted resolutions at Wednesday's faculty meeting to allow professors to adjust grades on the basis of class participation.

Approximately 500 law students rallied and marched on the dean's office both Thursday and Friday and staged a four hour sit in Friday afternoon to protest the faculty's decision to accept the resolution.

No Input

Charging that the faculty had not accepted student input before passing the resolutions Wednesday, the demonstrators demanded that the dean call an open faculty meeting for them to voice objections. Only 10 students are allowed to sit in on Law School faculty meetings, the next of which is scheduled for May 18, the end of exam period.

Vorenberg refused and instead scheduled today's open meeting of the Legal Education Committee.

"I think an open meeting of the committee is not going to be very effective said Helen D Irvin, a student representative on the Legal Education Committee at Friday's demonstration Past open meetings she added "seemed to have no effect at all on faculty actions."

We'll Be There

But protesters said this weekend that they plan to attend the open meeting masse.

"To expect some quick-fix action is unreasonable," Vorenberg told the students crowded outside his office Friday. I don't think the faculty could have a discussion," he added, "under a situation with three or four hundred students sitting around the room.

Day 2

The students had marched to Votenberg's office after a 10 a.m. rally Friday where they listened to a series of speakers on both side of the issue.

Associate Dean Lance M. Liebman defended the faculty's decision, telling the crowd that the Michelman committee, which recommended a series of changes in Law School teaching last spring, had consulted a number of students during its two year review of education at the Law School.

Among its recommendation, the committee had concluded that "one of the things wrong with legal education at this school was the one big exam at the end of the year," Liebman said.

He acknowledged that "the Michelman Committee seems like ancient history to present students" and that students "have already registered for next year's classes without knowledge of the new rules, and he said the faculty would reconsider the issue May 18.

Morton J. Horwitz 62. Warren Professor of American Legal History, spoke and gave the demonstration his approval to which the students responded by chanting. "Make him dean." Grading classroom participation, Horwitz said, "reflects an authoritarian and repressive view of the educational process."

Not A Pretty Picture

Several students spoke in defense of the faculty action, but most attacked the new rules "Are they trying to make our classroom discussions look like their faculty meetings?" .. are to look in the minor," one member of the Law Review said, implying that the school's reforms should begin with the faculty itself.

After the speeches concluded at 11.30 a.m., approximately 250 students matched on the dean's office in Grisweld Hall, where a dozen Harvard policeman waited with orders not to interfere. The students confronted Vorenberg for half on hour and then sat down for the afternoon.

No Discipline

"I have no information that would be the basis for disciplinary action." Vorenberg said at a press conference Friday afternoon.

The students gathered in several groups at the dean's office and in Langdell Hall, discussing tactics and amusing themselves with songs--for instance, "Change, change, change your vote" to the time of "Row, row row your host." A collection was taken up for pizza, and the Third World Coalition, the minority student group that was responsible for much of the student activism this year at the Law School, handed out several cases of soda.

At 3:10 p.m., Professor Gerald Frug moved his class in Local Government down ...

..

The .., with many favoring the lathy. "I don't think we can allow another faculty vote on this issue without charging the procedure," said one student. Even a reversal of Wednesday's decision, said another, "leaves as with the same process."

It is telling that the students who have argued since February for a voice in the decisions that affect legal education have gained significant support from the rest of the student body not on social issues but on classroom-related ones.

A March 9 student-faculty forum, jointly sponsored by the Third World Coalition and the faculty, drew over 350 students, with one of the largest complaints concerning the structure of the school's curriculum. Yesterday the issue was one traditionally near to law students' hearts grades.

More Activism

Another recent example of student activism is a letter, signed by 63 Jewish students at the Law School and 70 from Yale and New York University Law Schools, sent to Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin, and delivered to the Israeli mission to the United Nations Friday. The letter protests the Israeli invasion of Lebanon and the treatment of Palestinians in Israeli-occupied territories

After the speeches concluded at 11.30 a.m., approximately 250 students matched on the dean's office in Grisweld Hall, where a dozen Harvard policeman waited with orders not to interfere. The students confronted Vorenberg for half on hour and then sat down for the afternoon.

No Discipline

"I have no information that would be the basis for disciplinary action." Vorenberg said at a press conference Friday afternoon.

The students gathered in several groups at the dean's office and in Langdell Hall, discussing tactics and amusing themselves with songs--for instance, "Change, change, change your vote" to the time of "Row, row row your host." A collection was taken up for pizza, and the Third World Coalition, the minority student group that was responsible for much of the student activism this year at the Law School, handed out several cases of soda.

At 3:10 p.m., Professor Gerald Frug moved his class in Local Government down ...

..

The .., with many favoring the lathy. "I don't think we can allow another faculty vote on this issue without charging the procedure," said one student. Even a reversal of Wednesday's decision, said another, "leaves as with the same process."

It is telling that the students who have argued since February for a voice in the decisions that affect legal education have gained significant support from the rest of the student body not on social issues but on classroom-related ones.

A March 9 student-faculty forum, jointly sponsored by the Third World Coalition and the faculty, drew over 350 students, with one of the largest complaints concerning the structure of the school's curriculum. Yesterday the issue was one traditionally near to law students' hearts grades.

More Activism

Another recent example of student activism is a letter, signed by 63 Jewish students at the Law School and 70 from Yale and New York University Law Schools, sent to Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin, and delivered to the Israeli mission to the United Nations Friday. The letter protests the Israeli invasion of Lebanon and the treatment of Palestinians in Israeli-occupied territories

..

The .., with many favoring the lathy. "I don't think we can allow another faculty vote on this issue without charging the procedure," said one student. Even a reversal of Wednesday's decision, said another, "leaves as with the same process."

It is telling that the students who have argued since February for a voice in the decisions that affect legal education have gained significant support from the rest of the student body not on social issues but on classroom-related ones.

A March 9 student-faculty forum, jointly sponsored by the Third World Coalition and the faculty, drew over 350 students, with one of the largest complaints concerning the structure of the school's curriculum. Yesterday the issue was one traditionally near to law students' hearts grades.

More Activism

Another recent example of student activism is a letter, signed by 63 Jewish students at the Law School and 70 from Yale and New York University Law Schools, sent to Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin, and delivered to the Israeli mission to the United Nations Friday. The letter protests the Israeli invasion of Lebanon and the treatment of Palestinians in Israeli-occupied territories

It is telling that the students who have argued since February for a voice in the decisions that affect legal education have gained significant support from the rest of the student body not on social issues but on classroom-related ones.

A March 9 student-faculty forum, jointly sponsored by the Third World Coalition and the faculty, drew over 350 students, with one of the largest complaints concerning the structure of the school's curriculum. Yesterday the issue was one traditionally near to law students' hearts grades.

More Activism

Another recent example of student activism is a letter, signed by 63 Jewish students at the Law School and 70 from Yale and New York University Law Schools, sent to Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin, and delivered to the Israeli mission to the United Nations Friday. The letter protests the Israeli invasion of Lebanon and the treatment of Palestinians in Israeli-occupied territories