Student Council Decides Statement Of Policy on Red Probe in Schools

In a heated four-hour discussion last night the Student Council laid plans for an official statement on Congressional investigations of Communists in education.

The group announced that the statement will center about the role of the American college student, viewed in the light of current Congressional probes. Council President Paul A. Sheats '54 termed the proposal "one of the most important things the Council has ever done."

"Others can define academic freedom better than we," Sheats said. "Our problem is not whether Communists should be allowed to teach or whether investigations should be held. Nor is it whether those invoking the protection of the Fifth Amendment should lose their jobs."

Observer Named

"Ours is the much needed task of correcting public misunderstanding of the learning process and the student's relationship to it," Sheats concluded.

Last night's discussion climaxed five weeks of intensive study by several Council committees. As a result of this examination of the problem, the Council decided to restrict its consideration to the role of the college student in Communist investigations.

In other action, the Council named Christopher Nicholson '54 as official observer at tomorrow's Massachusetts Senate hearings on Bill 1820.

The bill, sponsored by Thomas Dorgan, Clerk of the Suffolk Superior Court and State Senator Paul McCarthy, would require college presidents to expell Communists and Communist sympathizers from their faculties. A previous hearing on the bill was postponed because of McCarthy's illness.