Assembly Will Form Committee To Research Students' Views

The Student Assembly last night voted 64-1 to form an ad hoc committee to make the assembly more responsive to student opinion.

The "ad hoc committee on assembly outreach" will supervise "town meetings" in each of the Houses, and will circulate polls and referendums to determine student opinion on particular issues, George J. Sanchez '80, sponsor of the motion, said last night.

Sanchez added that the committee will encourage every assembly member to "canvass each of the 75 students the member represents," and will inform students of their constitutional right to recall their assembly delegates by a petition signed by a majority of the residents in a House or section of the Yard.

The committee will be open to all students, and will invite student groups to attend assembly meetings in which issues of particular concern to the groups are likely to be discussed, Sanchez said.

"The ad hoc committee will be responsible for insuring that the assembly is truly a representative body," delegate Michael J.W. Rennock '81, said last night.

At last night's meeting the assembly also finished selecting its officers. The delegates elected Richard D. Bernstein '81-1 chairman of the Student Rights Committee, which Bernstein promised to turn into "a Harvard version of the American Civil Liberties Union."

The Student Rights Committee will investigate Harvard's compliance with federal legislation requiring equal facilities and expenditures for men and women, Bernstein said last night.

"The women's field hockey team has to get up at five in the morning to get a practice field, and I think that indicates Harvard is not obeying the rules," Bernstein added. If the committee finds violations of the law, it will inform the federal government, he said.

The Student Rights Committee will also set up a legal aid bureau and a grievance committee to help students going before the Administrative Board for possible disciplinary action, Bernstein added.

The assembly also voted to form a task force to consider seeking official recognition of the assembly by the Faculty or the Committee on Houses and Undergraduate Life (CHUL).

Last semester's assembly voted at its final meeting to seek some form of formal recognition from the University.