Students at the University of Colorado last week supported the firing of a Colorado Daily editor for "acts of editorial irresponsibility."

Editor Gary Althen had been removed from his position on the student paper, but not expelled from the University, for printing an article and letter by Carl Mitcham, a self-styled "anarchist" and Colorado senior, who is not on the paper's staff.

In a two-day referendum ending Thursday, 2049 students supported University of Colorado President Quigg Newton's action in ordering Althen fired; 907 others voted for "an immediate reconsideration" of their president's decision.

Three Weeks of Controversy

The decision had come after three weeks of controversy following the printing of an article written by Mitcham in the Gadfly, a weekly opinion supplement to the Daily, on Sept. 21. Commenting on United States polities, Mitcham, a philosophy major, had attacked Sen. Barry Goldwater as a "fool, a mountebank, a murderer, no better than a common criminal."

Mitcham then followed his article with a letter written to explain his comments. He attacked Goldwater again and referred to former President Dwight D. Eisenhower as "a lapdog. . .an old futser."

When Newton's decision to fire Althen came on Oct. 17, Terry Mashall, managing editor of the Daily, resigned, Remaining staff members removed the last three words from the paper's masthead motto, "71 years of editorial freedom.