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Students for a Democratic Society, Herrnstein lecture, February-June, 1972

1972-03-10 Daily Iowan Article: 'UI provost recommends suspension for WSA-SDS'

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By LARRY HITT Daily Iowan University Editor The provost's office of the University of Iowa will recommend to the UI hearing officer that the Worker-Students Alliance (WSA) and Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) be suspended from the campus for three years. In addition, Provost Ray L Heffner has charged a student with violating university regulations because he "aided and abetted" SDS in using university facilities while SDS was suspended from the campus. Simon J. Piller, 20, 321 South Johnson Street, said he received a letter Thursday from the university which charged him with violation of two sections of the general code of conduct. Piller, a WSA leader, said the letter did not include the precise language of the charges against him. Howard N. Sokol, assistant to the provost, said Piller is charged with "willful misrepresentation of a material fact to any member of the faculty or staff of the university in obtaining the use of facilities for SDS when they were otherwise unobtainable by the SDS due to its non-recognized status." Piller was also charged with what Sokol called a "corollary charge' of violating the university president's order that put SDS on suspension originally. Piller said that a hearing before Hearing Officer Theodore G. Garfield has been set for March 23. He said he would request that the trial "definitely be open." The university, in announcing the charges, did not identify Piller as the student charged with the violations. Piller said the university has known about his activities with WSA for the entire year, and that the only reason charges have been filed is because the university is responding to pressure from around the state. WSA had its student recognition revoked until April 7 for its part in a demonstration protesting a speech here by Harvard Prof. Richard J. Herrnstein. "I've stated that SDS is the same as WSA," Piller said. "We have used university facilities." He said that he saw the administration's move as one to rid the university of SDS permanently. He claimed he was charged because "they just wanted to single someone out." Sokol said Thursday that the recommended three year suspension of the groups results from a number of handbills in which WSA equated itself with SDS, a group that has been under suspension for organizing demonstrations in the past in which violations of conduct rules occurred. He said the Herrnstein demonstration was not the direct cause of the recommendations to Garfield.
 
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