1000 Endorse Equal Admissions

One thousand signatures have been collected on a petition for equal admissions of men and women and a one-to-one men-women ratio in coed houses, Rebecca J. Scott '71 of the Ad Hoc Equal Rights Group reported last night.

The group first began circulating the petition February 22 and gained some 500 signatures within two days. A copy with 850 signatures was given to the Committee on Houses and Undergraduate Life (CHUL) Monday.

The petition includes three demands, one of which is a request that Harvard make public the affirmative action plan approved last month by the FederalDepartment of Health, Education and Welfare (HEW).

It also rejects the current proposal for coed living arrangements for 1971-72 and demands equal admissions for the class of 1976.

According to Scott, "nobody can understand why" the affirmative action plan required by HEW is still secret.

Scott said that "surprising" numbers signed the petition in the all-male Houses-Eliot, Kirkland, Leverett and Mather-and in the Union. She said it was encouraging that some people "would sign against their own immediate chauvinist self-interests."

Members of the group, which grew out of the Dunster Equal Rights Group, have as their first goal "getting a decent plan put up for housing."

In sending the CHUL a copy of the petition they hope to demonstrate widespread dissatisfaction with a low female-male ratio in the Houses.

"We hope this is just a beginning in a campaign against unequal treatment of women at Harvard," said Amy C. Brodkey '71. "It's up to the women and interested men on campus to decide what really is to be done."