Law School Will Meet Informally On Punishments

Law School Faculty and students will resume their Friday meeting under a different format tonight when they will split into six different groups for "informal discussions" of the discipline actions against five black Law students.

The faculty has scheduled a meeting for Tuesday to consider the punishments meted out to the black students for their involvement in the OBU building seizures last semester.

In a memorandum to be distributed this morning, the five-man committee appointed to set up the meetings said the new format was designed to insure a "more conversational and more direct" discussion than Friday's open meeting.

But Thomas R. Gerety, a first-year Law student and one of those who protested last week's faculty meetings, called the six meetings "a bogus diversion."

"Discussion and especially divided discussion is the farthest thing from decision making. Why doesn't the faculty meeting split up in six little groups and make decisions about everything?" he said.

The committee has arranged for at least three faculty members to attend each of the six meetings in classrooms in Langdell and Austin Halls.

Derek C. Bok, dean of the Law School, and James Vorenberg '48, professor of Law and chairman of the Administrative Board, will attempt to appear at, every meeting, the memorandum said.

The separate meetings will begin at 7:30 p. m. and last two hours until students and faculty who wish to continue the "Informal discussion" will meet in the Harkness Commons Large Meeting Room.

Friday's open meeting-which drew over 800 people-ended after three hours when students made repeated motions from the floor to adjourn. The students clamed that the dwindling crowd prevented the "broad exchange of views" the faculty had intended in authorizing the meeting.

A member of the committee said later that the committee had not seriously considered convening a second meeting before the students forced them to make a decision.

In a closed meeting in Holyoke Center late Wednesday night, the faculty agreed to student requests to postpone its consideration of the punishments until after an open meeting of students and faculty.

A group of students protesting the faculty's announced intention to consider the punishments disrupted Tuesday's meeting and threatened to disrupt Wednesday's meeting before the faculty moved it to Holyoke Center.