Contras, Koreans, and CLA Recruiters

PRESIDENT REAGAN'S DESCRIPTION of the Contra rebels fighting Nicaragua's Sandinista government as "the moral equal of our Founding Father's found surprising acceptance his month at the normally liberal BROWN UNIVERSITY, where students joined townspeople in re-enacting the Contras' heroie struggle. Over 75 "Freedom Fighters" staged a mock Contra take-over of downtown Providence on April Fool, Day, replete with khaki fatigues, mock rifles, and cardboard tanks. After an hour of make-belive firing squad executions of "communist sympathizers," the play freedom fighters proclaimed victory from the steps of City Hall and declared Rhode Island's capital under martial law. The phony Contras were quick to agree with President's description of their Yankee forebears: shouted one "guerrilla" on the prowl for suspected communists, "we're not terrorists, we're fighting for democracy." Brown Daily Herala

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STUDENT HUNGER STRIKES, class boycotts, and violent demonstrations where 38 were wounded followed the March resignation of KOREA UNIVERSITY President Kim Jun-yop, which student and faculty leaders claim was forced by the South Korean government. Thousands of students attended demonstrations at the university's Seoul campus, while 12 student government leaders staged three-to- five-day hunger strikes and up to 25 percent of the student body boycotted military training classes for nine days last month. Student leaders said the government ousted Kim because he attempted to keep the university free from government pressure and because Kim was overly tolerant of growing student activism and protest against the authoritarian regime. The government claims Kim was told to step down because of evidence that he showed favoritism in the university student admissions process.   The Granite Tower, Seoul

FOLLOWING DARTMOUTH COLLEGE President David NcLaughlin's decision to return ROTC to the Hanover, N.H., school, 52 members of the faculty petitioned for a special April 29 faculty meeting to discuss how the university is governed. The faculty had vote against the military training program by a 3 to 1 margin, but McLaughlin and the Board of trustees decided to revive ROTC anyway. Dean of the Faculty Dwight Labasent sent professors an open letter asking them to drop their interest in "secondary concerns" like ROTC and instead concentrate on the "primary emphases and responsibilities" of the faculty. "It seemed to me," said one professor in response, "that the letter was designed to make the faculty feel better about the College without explaining why it should."   The DailY Dartmouth

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YALE UNIVERSITY last week suspended six students arrested for trespass and disorderly conduct during their protest of a Central Intelligence Agency recruitment interview. Yale had earlier refused to grant open disciplinary hearings to the six, who were charged with violation the university's free speech regulations, which prohibit demonstrations that "block the legitimate activity of any person on the Yale campus." Five hundred thirty students had signed petitions in support of the protesters' demand that the hearings be open to the public so that, in the words of one of the accused, "the community could see the charge brought against us, the rules allegedly broken, and the way the committee handles the case. If their decision is just, the community would see that too." In contrast to Harvard policy, in which students are excluded from their own disciplinary hearing, Yale does allow accused students to attend such proceedings.   Yale Daily News and the Associated Press

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CIA RECRUITERS ALSO found less than a warm welcome last week at CORNELL UNIVERSITY, where five students posed as interviewees only to place the CIA representatives under citizen's arrest, while more than 100 others protested the spy agency outside. The protesters charged the CIA with violations of U.S. law that forbids American involvement in assassinations, the War Powers Act, which prohibits the conduct of war without an act of Congress, and the charters of the United Nations and the Organization of American States, which outlaw intervention in member countries Cornell officials defended the presence of the recruiters the large amount of federal funding the university receives requires it to cooperate with government agencies like the CIA. "In that case," said one demonstrator, Cornell "should re-examine is relationship to the government." Fifteen were arrested for trespass during the demonstration the UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN in Madison, police line chemical Mace on 100 protesters who tried to push through a police line to reach a CIA interview site. At COLORADO UNIVERSITY., more than 300 were arrested in two days of protests.   Cornell Daily Sun and the Associated Press

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FRESHMAN AND SOPHOMORES looking forward to minimum-wage summer jobs may have less to look forward to if a Reagan Administration proposal to cut youth wages wins Congressional approval. The "youth opportunity wage act of 1985" would allow employers to pay persons under age 20 $2.50 an hour or 75 percent of the adult minimum wage, whichever is less, from May to September each year. Supporters of the legislation, introduced by Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) and Rep. Trent Lott (R-Miss.), say the bill will increase the number of jobs open to young people.   Education Week

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BOTH MAJOR POLITICAL parties try to capture the essence of American government in their names, but a group of student politicians at the UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, BERKELEY, is going a bit further, Campaigning last week in the student government elections, the Boring Party offers voters a a blank piece of paper as its platform and the rallying cry "The Future Lies Ahead." Although one Boring candidate promised students life after death in exchange for their votes, party members pledge only that they will be apathetic in the performance of their duties.   --Michigan Daily

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WHILE BERKELEY STUDENTS ponder the Boring Party, those at the UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, SANTA CRUZ, are considering weightier issues in their April student elections. Like a similar movement at Brown University, a group of Santa Cruz students is sponsoring a measure asking the school administration in stock suicide pills for use in the event of a nuclear attack. The measure, sponsored by the Student Alliance for Fallout Emergency, or SAFE, also asks for on campus mass grave sites so irradiated bodies can be quickly disposed. Although Santa Cruz Chancellor Robert Sinsheimer opposes the measure with the claim that "such actions cannot be the mission of a university," backers say that win or lose, "just the fact that people are talking and thinking about [the meaning of nuclear war] means we've already met one of our goals."   Daily Bruin

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TOURISTS IN CAMBRIDGE are invited by Harvard to audit some of the university's larger lectures, but those who can make it to Cuba can actually enroll in college courses. The CENTRAL UNIVERSITY OF CUBA, in cooperation with local tourism officials, offers classes in Spanish and agricultural science to those slumming their way through the Carribean workers' paradise. Fortytwo Canadian tourists last year took courses offered at the university, located in Villa Clara province, and tourism officials intend to offer an expanded program this year.   Granma Weekly Review, Havana

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AS HARVARD GOES, so goes the nation. The shortened reading period that students here faced last semester has now taken hold at NORTHWESTERN UNIVERSITY, in Evanston, III. where Winter Quarter's former seven-day Reading Week was cut to four days. Like their Cantab counterparts, Northwestern students bitched aplenty because of the change, but Dean Rudolph Weingartner offered the "hope that nobody's grades depend on an extra two days." Like Harvard's mini-reading period, Northwestern's was the result of a scheduling fluke, and will return to full length in the future. Some, though, apparently benefit from the mandatory cram, chemistry lee turer Thomas Weaver reported that Winter Quarter grades for his courses went up after the shortened Reading Week.   Daily Northwestern