2 Nigerian Students Sue Bick

Two Harvard graduates from Nigeria who were arrested in the Bick last Spring are suing the Hayes-Bickford restaurant chain for $20,000.

The suit charges that the management of the Harvard Square cafeteria discriminated against the two by refusing to serve them food on a clean tray. "As a result" of the alleged discrimination, the suit declares, the students were "detained and imprisoned for a long period of time on the false and trumped-up charges of Trespassing and Breach of the Peace."

The students, Uchenna C. Nwoosu '64 and Olufemi Okoraummu '63, at the manager's request. The case against the two was later dismissed were arrested May 24, 1964, when they refused to leave the restaurant because they had not been allowed by Cambridge police to make a telephone call within an hour of their arrest, as required by Massachusetts law.

Nwonu claimed a few days after the arrests that trays offered the students at the restaurant had been dirty and that when the two complained, the manager told them. "You don't get such good things in your home country."

Police Summoned

The students called the police for assistance. Six officers arrived and, according to witnesses, conferred for several minutes with the students and the manager. After the manager indicated that he no longer wished to serve the students at all, they were ordered to leave. They refused and were ordered to leave. They refused and were subsequently arrested.

The suit charges that the management caused the two students to be falsely arrested and imprisoned. Each, it says, "suffered anguish of mind and humiliation" and "a great deal of pain."