Howard Fast finally found an entree, at the Washington Square College of New York University. Dean Thomas C. Pollock had his doubts, but he gave his approval.

But on the same day, December 12, Fast was refused twice more. The New York Board of Education refused to let him speak at the Midwood High School, across the street from Brooklyn College. And at Hunter College the Dean, over P.C.A. protests, turned Fast down. Both bans were based on Fast's legal status.

Fast tried again. He succeeded in obtaining permission to speak at the C. C. N. Y. night session, but 15 minutes before the speech, the night session dean called a halt. He had been unaware, he said, of college policy on convicted speakers.

No 'Subversives'

Policy at the municipal colleges apparently was fixed; no "subversives," and no men under "judicial consideration." Columbia, however, made a distinction. On December 15, it okayed a speech by Arnold Johnson before the Marxist Study Group. Provost Jacobs explained, "Any man who is not under sentence or under indictment can speak at Columbia."

Every this policy was soon revised. Soon after Fast had been banned, a Committee to Study Student Organizations was formed. On April 12, 1948, the University put this committee's report into effect. From then on, all doubtful cases were to be referred to a student council committee for a final decision, and furthermore, indictment was rejected as a formal criterion for permitting or rejecting speakers.

Over a year later, however, Columbia's administration took the powers back again. A few weeks ago, the student council approved a petition of the Marxist Group for a speech by Gus Hall, one of 11 Communists on trial for violating the Smith Act.

On May 3, Provost Jacobs wrote to the chairman of the administration's Committee on Student Organizations, "The university student council has clearly adopted as its policy the avoidance of responsibility for decision as to speakers ... I hereby return to the Committee on Student Organizations the power to decide whether suggested speakers are to be permitted to speak on the university campus."

Gus Hall Banned

Three days later, the administration committee unanimously prohibited the Gus Hall speech, "for the reason that to permit a person to speak while he is on trial would constitute an affront to the court."

The scheduled appearance of another one of the 11 Communist leaders produced another squall at Brooklyn College, which has not yet ended.

Last March, the Karl Marx Society at Brooklyn asked permission to held a campus meeting featuring Harry Winston. The Faculty-Student Committee on Student Activities vetoed this, because Winston currently is on trial in New York. The Marxist group was also warned that it could not sponsor the meeting off the campus, either.

But the meeting took place anyway, and Winston was there. The local Teachers' Union claimed the club was only trying to "challenge the legality of the ruling." The "challenge" was met, with immediate suspension for the Karl Marx club and its three executives.

Three days afterwards a protest meeting was held on the campus. It was unauthorized, however, so the college suspended the three students who "justigated and addressed it." The Vanguard, college daily, later charged that "at this same 'unauthorized' meeting, students who openly supported the suspension of K.M.S. and its leaders, spoke -- yet no similar action, no action at all, was taken against these people."

The three men were not reinsisted. On May 2, the A.V.C. chapter called a meeting "to work out united action to reinstate the three suspended students." Several clubs joined in a campaign for this purpose, and on May 12, they proclaimed, "All other conceivable measures of protest having failed, a class stoppage" should be held.