Mass. Draft Board Hits Deferments For Grad Students

A Gloucester draft board on September 5 protested in a later to Senators Salton-stall and Lodge that it was being forced to administer "a rich man's law which is grossly unfair to thousands of young men. We do not feel that just because an individual has money enough to go to graduate school that he should be continually defered."

The board, State Selective Service Board 72, had three times refused to grant deferments to students planning graduate study. Each time it had been over-ruled by the state appeal board.

In its letter to the Massachusetts senators the board cited each of the three cases:

1. A law school student who said in a questionnaire filled out as an undergraduate that he was "majoring in commerce preparing for business."

2. A student in a graduate school of business administration who told the board "I am planning a career as an actuary."

3. A graduate student who is a candidate for an M.A. in rural sociology and who informed the board that "There is a further possibility of doing advanced research work in the very closely related field of psychology."