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the right to refute charges, and the right to appeal. The letter mentioned AAUP guidelines to student fredoms which call for a formality of proceedings appropriate to the punishment inflicted. Twentyseven teachers signed a petition calling for a general meeting of the faculty. Although the college rules say that a faculty meeting shall be called upon request of 25 faculty members, such a meeting has not been held. The administration had answered neither the AAUP statement nor the call for a general meeting when the Observer went to press. “IN THE WAKE of the suspensions, a list of student demands has been circulated. It calls for a later curfew for women students \( the weeknight curfew now is 9:30 p.m. for freshmen and 10:15 gates; longer library hours; student participation on policy making committees; more social activities; Negro history courses; and no compulsory class attendance. Probably the most important demand is for a writen handbook of rules. A handbook was prepared for distribution this year, Dr. Solomon said, “but it had some errors in it, so we didn’t print it.” A faculty member said that last September the handbook was shown to a few student leaders and they said that if it were distribute d, the administration would have a student revolt on its hands. Many students and professors mentioned the handbook, and what supposedly was in itcompulsory chapel, strict regulation of dress, no hand holding. Without a handbook, however, students are not sure that they are breaking rules until they already have broken them. Discipline is strict. “A girl that stays out 15 minutes late most likely will be expelled,” a faculty member said. Regulations governing professors are equally vague. There was disagreement among faculty members questioned as to whether Prairie View gives tenure. Some of the 27 teachers who signed the petition calling for a faculty meeting have been called in by their department heads and asked for the names of persons responsible for circulating the petition. Prairie View administrators are not used to having their policies questioned. But a handful of faculty members are determined to force the administration to explain its actions concerning the suspensions, even if it endangers their own careers. K.N. Black Students Convene El Paso A black students conference beginning the day after the assassination of Martin Luther King was bound to be depressing. But the conclusion of a weekend conference at the University of Texas at El Paso on the role of black students was even more sobering than the timing. After two days of group discussions and talks by black activists Dick Gregory and Professor Harry Edwards, the consensus among conference participants was that it is too late to keep America from burning. The conference, sponsored by the 40member United Afro-American Students and the UTEP Student Association and attended by about 150 students from didn’t begin on such a pessimistic note. Alex Sutton, junior psychology major and president of the UAAS, opened the session with a speech decrying the suppression of black culture by a white racist society. While Sutton’s talk clearly condemned contemporary American society, his rhetoric was academic rather than revolutionary. Even the establishment press could not call his speech “inflammatory.” After Sutton’s talk the conference participants separated into racially mixed Black students from three states held a conference at the University of Texas at El Paso to discuss the role of blacks on college campuses. The writer last fall attended, under a Carnegie Foundation grant, a student press association conference in Atlanta on the same general topic and there engaged in conversations with Martin Luther King, Nathan Wright \(organizer and chairman of the Newark gois \( the director of the St. Louis model Mr. Casey, who is white, graduates this spring from St. Mary’s University, San Antonio, with a degree in psychology. He has worked for the San Antonio Light and done other journalistic work. discussion groups. Throughout the discussions, as throughout the conference, references to the death of Dr. King seemed more analytical than emotional. The assassination was not so much the brutal slaying of a beloved hero. as it was Rick Casey just one more symptom of sick American society. “King was the last link of peace left,” said Robert Bryant, a black student from New Mexico State University. Then he expressed a characteristic attitude among black students at the conference: “I’m not swayed toward any one leader very much. I’d like to straighten up this mess peaceable if possible, but with whatever means are necessary. I would like to avoid violence.” Some other remarks made by black students in discussions before the talks by Gregory and Edwards illustrate the tone of the conference in its early stages: “Head Start is of tremendous value. But we have to accept a lost generation or two. This is going to take time.” “They keep telling me I can’t have a white man as a friend. But I’ve got some very close white friends and I go to their Little Ned’s Renaissance INS APERS OSTERS AINTINGS AMPHLETS APERBACKS ERIODICALS ATHFINDERS LUS ARAPHERNALIA Roy Dugger, Prop. 427 N. St. Mary’s Street San Antonio, Texas 78205 houses often.” “What we need is gradual integration. We should move quality blacks into white neighborhoods to show whites that all blacks don’t tear up the neighborhood. While these discussions were being held in one end of the student union Saturday morning, Professor Edwards was holding a press conference in the other end. The mood was different. E DWARDS IS the San Jose State professor behind the black boycott of the Olympic games. He is tall, athletic,. and wears sunglasses above a mustache and beard that protrudes from his chin. To whites who haven’t been to the ghetto for a few years, he looks mean. One of the blacks with Edwards took the microphone first to address the group of about a dozen reporters. “Before we begin, we’d like to make a few things clear. This is Professor Harry Edwards. When you address him, say ‘Professor Edwards’not ‘Harry,”Mr. Edwards,’ or May 10, 1968 11 THE TEXAS OBSERVER BOOKSTORE DARK STAR: HIROSHIMA RECON-SIDERED IN THE LIFE OF CLAUDE EATHERLY. by Ronnie Dugger. World Publishing Co., 254 PP., photographs by Russell Lee. “It asks some very searching questions, questions that will remain with the reader long after the book is finished.” List Price $5.95. Optional membership in the Observer Discount Club, at $5.00 for one year, entitles readers to order DARK STARor any number for 20% less than the list price. Please add the 3% Austin and state sales tax to your remittance. 504 West 24th Austin, Texas 78705