LEGAL AID SUSPENSION SPONTANEOUS?

To the Editors of the CRIMSON:

According to an article in the CRIMSON on April 27, Jonathan Lubell was forced from Legal Aid to some extent by "outside pressure." However, nowhere in the statement issued by the Legal Aid Bureau does any reference to outside pressure appear. In other words, the members of the Bureau are satisfied to allow the expulsion of one of their number appear to be spontaneous. If such is not the case, full disclosure of any covert pressures must be made.

Coming from an honorary group of students in the country's leading law school, such spontaneous action stands as a compelling precedent for other organizations faced with a similar decision. Is there any reason that Phi Beta Kappa, Law Reviews, and other honorary groups should not follow suit? As for non-honorary groups, the conclusion is a fortiori. If there are any distinguishing factors, any compelling circumstances, that differentiate the Legal Aid case from any other, the Bureau has chosen to conceal them.

If, contrary to the CRIMSON's report, the action of the Bureau was taken entirely on the initiative of a majority of its members, then nothing more need be said. But if outside pressure coerced an unwilling group to act as it otherwise would not have acted, especially since this organization is one to which others must look with respect, silence is inexcusable on any conceivable grounds.

The truth should be made public both as a matter of fairness to Jonathan Lubell and others similarly situated, and also, if it is not already too late, as a matter of personal integrity. Monroe H. Freedman 2L.