Divestment Activists Enter Not Guilty Plea

The 18 pro-divestment activists arrested for occupying the office of a Harvard overseer entered a plea of not guilty at their arraignment in Boston Municipal Court yesterday morning.

All but two of the activists will appear in court again on June 23, when they are expected to repeat their plea of not guilty and set a date for a jury trial. The other two protesters, both alumni, waived their right to a jury trial and paid $65 fines for the offense.

Among the arrested were two undergraduates, Dinah S. Leventhal '88 and Jerome I. Hodos '89. Both students said that they had not been informed whether the College plans to take any disciplinary action against them. Dean of Students Archie C. Epps III declined to comment on the matter yesterday.

Leventhal's North House senior tutor, Robert Franklin, said yesterday that he too had not been informed about whether the College intends to take disciplinary action against her. If the College does take such action, Franklin said, it would have to notify him before the senior receives her diploma at Commencement Exercises tomorrow.

Hodos' Quincy House senior tutor, Mary McGee, could not be reached for comment.

Three other undergraduate protesters left the sit-in about an hour before the arrests. Approximately 45 activists staged the sit-in Monday at the office of Overseer Thomas L.P. O'Donnell '47, a senior partner in the Boston law firm of Ropes and Gray.

The group of alumni, undergraduates and community activists targeted O'Donnell because he has recently been chosen as the co-chairman of a joint committee of overseers and Corporation members that will investigate the University's investment policy. The formation of the committee was approved as an alternative to a direct Overseers' vote on divestment.

The activists yesterday charged that O'Donnell had an interest in voting against divestment because Ropes and Gray represents both Harvard and the South Africa-linked Gilette company.

The protesters called on O'Donnell to make a public statement in favor of divestment or resign from the Board of Overseers, and they also requested that he meet with all of them. O'Donnell did not accede to the demands and the protesters were arrested by Boston police for trespassing at 7:45 p.m., more than nine hours after the protest had begun.

Lee D. Goldstein, the activists' attorney, said the protesters will need to determine the exact form their defense will take, but he said that they intend to make Harvard's investment policy relevant to their arguments.

"It will involve bringing into court Harvard's involvement in supporting the South Africa regime," he said.

The trial will probably be deferred until the fall, said Goldstein, a super- vising attorney for Harvard's Legal Aid Bureau,who participated in the sit-in on Monday forseveral hours. He said the delay would stem fromthe request for information about Harvard's linksto Ropes and Gray that he plans to make.

Goldstein successfully employed the tactic ofputting the object of a protest on trial in hisdefense of Abby Hoffman and Amy Carter. Hoffmanand Carter were arrested during a demonstrationagainst CIA recruiting at UMass-Amherst.

Managing Partner Richard W. Southgate, whoacted as the firm's spokesman throughout theprotest, said that the firm was finally forced tohave the protesters arrested because they wouldnot agree to meet in a smaller group withO'Donnell.

"We kept hoping that the protesters would agreeto the format of having some suitable number ofrepresentatives meet with Mr. O'Donnell. We waitedfor that up to the end, but we never received thatagreement," Southgate said.

"We had to be ready to ready to conduct ournormal business," Southgate said. Only a fewsenior partners were involved in making policydecisions during the protest, but a large numberof staff members spent the entire day guarding thefirm offices.

One of the outcomes of the sit-in was toincrease the level of security at Ropes and Gray."We were quite surprised by what was done,"Southgate said. "We are going to try to be muchmore careful in the future."

"I'll tell you one thing, we are being verywatchful today," he said yesterday