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N.Y. College Students Condemn Speech Ban Against Red Editor

Barring Labelled 'Hypocrisy'

Students of the five municipal New York colleges affected by yesterday's resolution barring John Gates from speaking on their campuses indignantly condemned this decision taken by the five college presidents and Provost Thomas V. Garvey of Queens College.

The indignation aroused by the ban on Gates, editor of the Daily Worker, was further heightened by his receiving and accepting three bids to speak before student groups at Columbia University. The Columbia administration, unlike the presidents of the City, Hunter, Queens, Brooklyn, and the Staten Island Community Colleges, has not cancelled Gates' invitations.

The student senate of Queens College, drawing up a unanimous resolution condemning the ban, spearheaded the reaction to what is considered a serious threat to academic freedom. The senate criticized Garvey for delay in declaring on the ban and felt that he had "yielded to public pressure groups."

The editor of the University of North Carolina's Tarheel telegrammed his agreement about Garvey's action: "Such hypocrisy in modern education is sickening and disgusting."

Meeting Televised

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This emergency student senate meeting was covered by CBS television and its decision was reported to be "over-whelmingly supported" by the student body.

Claire Deutsch, President of the Queens College Senate, regretted that the storm of controversy was centering the issue around Gates; she declared that "It isn't Gates we want, its academic freedom."

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