Heat On The Summer School

The heat from last summer was still on Thomas E. Crooks '49, director of the Summer School, this week. A group of poor white medical school students announced Monday its plans to sit-in on President Bok to protest Crooks's performance running the University's summer programs last year.

Eugene Welljams-Dorof '73, a member of the group, said that the group would ask Bok to fire Crooks on the grounds that Crooks had personally decided last spring to exclude whites from the Health Career Summer program, and attempted to "bribe" one white woman who had been admitted to the program to dissuade her from attending it.

The group also said it planned to file a Class-action suit on behalf of all poor whites, on the grounds that by excluding whites the program violates the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

The development of Health, Education and Welfare affirmed early this month that the program, which trains economically disadvantaged students for medical careers, is intended primarily for blacks, Chicanos, Puerto Ricans and American Indians.

Last year an HEW grant paid for 150 of the 162 students enrolled in the program. Only one of the Students was white.

The white woman, who asked not to be identified, said that after she was admitted to the program Crooks and Dr. Delano Meriwether, then executive director of the program, asked her to resign and attend the summer school instead.

The alleged bribe, she said, consisted of an offer to match the benefits of the special program--free room board and tuition, and a $500 stipend--in the regular summer school.

Crooks would not comment specifically on the woman's characterization of the offer, but said that it would have been paid for out of funds given by private donors.