Yale Faculty Decides to Suspend Academic Activities During Strike

The Yale faculty yesterday voted to "suspend normal academic activities" during the current student strike and called on those professors holding classes to "take a tolerant attitude" towards students boycotting classes.

But the faculty resolution, which represented almost complete adoption of a list of demands presented at the meeting by a group of black faculty, urged the Yale administration not to close the university officially.

The student strike, now entering its third day, has been about 70 per cent effective so far, according to the Yale Daily News.

The strike was called Tuesday at a mass meeting sponsored by the New Haven Black Panther Party, the Black Student Alliance at Yale, and the Third World Liberation Front to support Panther National Chairman Bobby Seale and the eight New Haven Panthers being tried in New Haven on charges of murder.

Rally

Earlier yesterday, about 880 Yale students led by John Turner, a New Haven Black Panther and head of the United Front for Panther Defense, rallied in Beinicke Plaza and marched to Sprague Hall, where the faculty was meeting.

Three black students entered the meeting and presented the demands of the Black Student Alliance at Yale (BSAY).

Yale's colleges-residential units like Harvard Houses-held "advisory" votes on the strike Tuesday, and all but one-Saybrook-voted their support. Most of the colleges also voted to open their doors to demonstrators coming to the May 1 rally called by the Conspiracy defendants in support of Bobby Seale.

Some colleges also held advisory votes on what demands the strikers should support. So far, the strike has had no definite set of demands.

However, two student groups-BSAY and the Strike Steering Committee, an ad hoc group of white students-have issued demands. BSAY ask that Yale give $500,000 to the Panther defense fund, give financial aid to the Panthers'Free Breakfast program, and rehire two black workers fired earlier this month.

The Steering Committee has demanded that Yale call for a halt to the trial of the New Haven Panthers and open all its facilities to the demonstrators on May 1. The Steering Committee has also demanded day-care centers for the Yale community, improved working conditions for workers at Yale, and a halt to construction of the university's multi-million-dollar Social Science Center.