Dartmouth Students to Face Hearing on Racial Incident

Four students at Dartmouth College, who last week were charged with racially harassing a Black professor, will appear at a hearing today before the school's disciplinary board.

The hearing will decide whether the students, who all write for the conservative journal The Dartmouth Review, violated the school's code of conduct by confronting music professor William S. Cole last Thursday at the end of his class.

According to one student involved, Sean P. Nolan, the Review writers stopped the professor to ask his response to an article in last week's issue which criticized his course, "American Music in the Oral Tradition." Although it is unclear what happened next, according to a college spokesman, the confrontation between Cole and Christopher S. Baldwin, editor-in-chief of the Review, two other Review editors and Nolan, turned into a vigorous shouting match.

Last week's episode is only one in a series of incidents that have increased racial tensions on campus over the last few years.

Daron S. Fitch, the treasurer of the Dartmouth Afro-American Society, said that the incident has created a mood of racial unrest on the campus. The Society released a statement on Monday which "expressed concern about the incident and the attitudes which letsomething happen and go unpunished," he said.

Along with the statement, the Society issued aseries of demands to Dartmouth President James O.Freedman. The first, which was denied, called forthe suspension of the four students until today'shearing, under a Comittee on Standards rule whichstates that any students who "present a threat tothe Dartmouth community" can be given 24 hours toleave the campus.

Fitch said the Society also demanded that thecollege issue a statement on racism. In response,Freedman spoke at a rally in front of ParkhurstHall, Dartmouth's main administration building onMonday. According to Rick Adams, a collegespokesman, Freedman called the students actions"unnecessarily and inapropriately provocative."The president added that "Racism, sexism, andother forms of ignorance and disrespect have noplace at Dartmouth," the spokesman said.

Two years ago, students affiliated with theReview destroyed shanties that were erected on theDartmouth campus in protest of South Africa.

Since that time, said Fitch of theAfro-American Society, "Nothing of this magnitudehas happenned, but that's not to say that smallerthings haven't happened, ranging from food fightsto people yelling down frat row 'Die niggers,die.' They don't happen often, but they happen."

Today's hearing will be open to the public, atthe request of the students involved.

Nolan said, however, that the hearing wouldfail to bring the issue to the community at large.He said due to space limitations only 25 studentsand faculty members, chosen by a lottery, and twodirect relatives would be allowed to attend.

According to Nolan, the Review editors wantedCole to respond to an article, which he said wasprimarily a transcript of one of Cole's lectures.

"The primary purpose was to show that it was apoor course that didn't need to be taught," hesaid