B.U. Trials

Philip Ostrow, a Boston University senior and a member of SDS, was acquitted at B.U. last week of impairing university-authorized Marine recruiting last March 1.

But Ostrow's trial--despite his acquittal--was unfair. He and four other students are being tried in connection with three demonstrations last Spring under a disciplinary code which defies every reasonable conception of due process.

In Ostrow's case, B.U. was trying a student retroactively under B.U.'s new Provisional Student Disciplinary Code passed last April 20. Under that code, Ostrow had no power to subpoena witnesses. His prosecutor, judge and jury were all appointed, directly or indirectly, by B.U. President John R. Silber. Had Ostrow been found guilty, he could have appealed only to Silber.

B.U.'s prosecutor claimed last week that B.U. adheres more closely to the dictates of due process than any other private university. But Ostrow and the four other defendants were informed last summer that they were expelled from B.U., even before they were told of the charges against them. None of them has any power to call to account the administrator who expelled them groundlessly. None can even compel his testimony at the hearings.

The four remaining defendants are to be tried on charges for which a municipal court declined to find them guilty last May. B.U.'s investigator told the defendants that their expulsions were based on evidence brought out in court. If a court failed to find them guilty on the basis of that evidence, B.U. has no right to act as a separate jury judging the same evidence and events.

Students for Action, an ad hoc coalition at B.U., is protesting the code, on-campus recruiting, and the remaining trials. The College of Liberal Arts faculty has already voted for the abolition of the code. People interested in helping Students for Action should contact Alan Morosky or Deborah Helsberg at the B.U. Student Union.

Students do not waive their civil rights when they pay tuition to a college. Student and Faculty letters to Silber from other schools, letters of protest or even of inquiry, will help protect these students' rights until the code is toppled.