AAAAS to Seek OK From Faculty Group

The proposed Harvard Association of African and Afro-American Students has appealed to the Administration for official recognition, claiming that its membership clause violates no University rule.

The Faculty Committee on Student Activities will discuss the appeal at its Oct. 17 meeting.

Last May the Harvard Committee on Undergraduate Affairs rejected the group's routine request for recognition. Members of the HCUA felt that the proposed constitution contained a discriminatory membership clause.

Six Page Letter Written

In a six-page letter to Dean Watson and the Faculty Committee, members of the association claim: "We have confirmed with the Dean's (Dean Watson's) Office that there is no law which forbids campus organizations from discriminating against persons or groups of persons on any grounds."

"Discrimination per se, that is, without perjorative connotations," says the letter, released yesterday, "is neither legally nor morally reprehensible."

In any case, the members maintain, their group is not improperly discriminatory and that the membership clause, "as we see it, is a purely inclusive statement.... We merely stated that African and Afro-American students may become members. We did not go further to say that any other person cannot."

The clause reads: "Membership in the Association shall be open to African and Afro-American students currently enrolled at Harvard and Radcliffe."

"The Council," says the letter, "hardly considered what we presented to them in our constitution."

No Objection Seen

Ononeze M. Anochie '64, president of the proposed group, told the CRIMSON last night, "If the HCUA tries to look at our constitution again and interpret it as we do in the letter, I don't see what would be objectionable to them."

Pending the Faculty Committee's approval, which Anochie said he expects, the group has informally elected officers who met during the summer to plan a program for the year.

Friday night the association will sponsor a speech by Conrad Lynn, chairman of the "National Committee for a Freedom Now Party." Lynn will talk in the Eliot House common room, obtained for the evening by what Anochie termed a "private arrangement."

The full text of the letter from the Association of African and Afro-American Students to the Faculty Committee on Student Activities will appear in tomorrow's CRIMSON.