Contra Speech Protester Set for Cambridge Court

Cambridge District Court Judge Arthur Sherman yesterday set a date for the jury trial of a protester who disrupted a former contra leader's speech at the Law School last October.

Tufts senior Joshua Laub will be tried April 20 on charges of disturbing a school and being a disorderly person, Assistant District Attorney Gregory J. Pasquale said yesterday after Laub's pre-trial conference.

At a trial last month a district court judge convicted Laub of these two charges, imposing $371 in fines. She also granted him a continuance without a finding on an additional charge of assault. The continuance put Laub on probation for six months and barred him from the Harvard campus for that period.

Laub has exercised his right under state law to appeal a trial decided by a judge to a six-member jury.

Last October, Laub, screaming anti-contra epithets, rushed the podium where former contra leader Adolfo Calero was about to speak and allegedly tried to attack him. Harvard police dragged Laub from the podium, and Law School officials immediately cancelled the speech.

The incident sparked discussion on campus of the University's function as a forum for dissenting opinions and free speech, but Laub said yesterday that the trial "is not political."

Locke, who is donating his services to Laub, said he was optimistic about the prospects for the new trial.

"It can't be any worse than what happened with the judge," Locke said. "We just felt it was more severe than was justified."

Locke said after the trial last month that the court had made Laub a scapegoat. "Just because Harvard has a history of having problems at its forums there's no reason this history should come down on the shoulders of Mr. Laub," he said at the time.