Bowie Charges Students For CFIA Disruption

Robert R. Bowie, director of the Center for International Affairs, (CFIA) yesterday filed disciplinary charges against 20 students with the Committee on Rights and Responsibilities (CRR) for disrupting a meeting of the CFIA Visiting Committee three weeks ago.

The students are charged with "obstruction of essential University activities" by crowding on the second floor of the CFIA where the Visiting Committee was meeting.

James Q. Wilson, chairman of the CRR, said yesterday that the rights committee would begin mailing copies of the charges this morning to affected students, and that disciplinary hearings would begin within ten days. He added that the Committee would reach its final decisions about three weeks from today.

Criminal Charges

In addition, University spokesmen stated yesterday that the possibility of filing criminal charges against four non-students alleged to have taken part in the demonstration and "reported to have been prominent in other disruptive activity in the Boston area" is under "active consideration."

Several of the twenty students named by Bowie face additional charges in connection with the events that followed the disruption of the Visiting Committee meeting:

nine students have been charged with "forcibly interfering with the freedom of movement of a University officer and his guest" in Mallinckrodt parking lot;

two students were named for "interfering with the freedom of movement of a University officer and his guest at the subway rotunda in Harvard Square";

one student has been charged with "intense personal harassment" of Samuel R. Williamson Jr., assistant to the dean of Harvard College.

Bowie declined last night to release the names of any of the students he charged or to elaborate on any of thecharges. Archibald Cox '34, Samuel Williston Professor of Law and University spokesman, refused to discuss the considerations surrounding possible legal actions against non-students. Willson said that, as far as he knew, all of those charged were undergraduates.

Remembrance of Things Past

Last April 9, about 200 demonstrators entered the CFIA and forced their way past University officials onto the building's second floor. A number broke into the meeting room where the Visiting Committee was meeting. Bowie then told the demonstrators that they were violating the Faculty's Interim Resolution on Rights and Responsibilities.

When demonstrators refused to disperse, the Visiting Committee members left the meeting room and scattered through the crowd. Bowie, his wife, and two members of the Committee made their way to Bowie's car in Mallinckrodt parking lot, where they were pursued and surrounded by demonstrators.

Bowie and one committee member fled to the Harvard Square MBTA island and entered a taxi cab, where demonstrators engulfed and trapped them for 20 minutes. Williamson then escorted Bowie down Church St. away from the crowd, but the two men were followed closely by ten of the demonstrators.

University spokesmen claimed yesterday that Bowie had charged the 20 students according to "all the instances revealed by evidence available." They added that any other newly introduced evidence would lead to further charges.