White-Negro Relations Can Go Just So Far at Earlham

Earlham College in Richmond, Indiana, founded to promote interracial cooperation, last spring suspended a white and a negro who decided to marry.

Objection to Earlham's action was raised by the Academic Freedom Committee of the American Civil Liberties Union in a letter to President Thomas Jones. Admitting that some regulations were necessary to keep the students' mind on studies, the Committee posed the question of "how a college can properly intervene to prevent an engagement between young persons at an age when such preliminary contractual relationships are ordinarily entered into in American society."

The engagement is marked as unusual by the agreement of the six persons envolved--the couple and both families, who have given their consent. The dissenting party, Earlham College, is left behind; both students graduated last spring.