Fifteen Harvard, Yale, and Columbia law students will work this summer on a civil rights project in Washington and in Greenville and Jackson, Miss. The project, financed by private funds, is being organized by William L. Higgs, a Mississippi attorney and former counsel to James Meredith.

With five students working in each of the three cities, the project will combine information, research, and pressure-group functions in Washington with field work in Mississippi.

Three Offices

The Washington office will be concerned with the analysis of legislative-executive activity and other developments affecting the civil rights movement. It will relay this information to the Mississippi group and to key centers of civil rights activity such as Atlanta, Ga. The office will attempt to influence action on civil rights and civil liberties by contacting Congressmen, federal agencies and officials, and private organizations.

In Mississippi, the students will serve as law clerks for Higgs and the three Negro lawyers in the state who now handle civil rights cases. The group will also work on voter education and registration with existing organizations, particularly the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee. Through its office in the capital, it will be able to provide these groups with a line of communication to and from Washington.

One of the project's main concerns will be the exploitation of opportunities for desegregation through federal programs administered by agencies such as the Housing and Home Finance Administration, the Area Redevelopment Administration, and the Departments of Agriculture, Interior, Labor, and Health, Education, and Welfare.

Will Pressure Government

Higgs hopes that the Washington office will be able to coordinate moves which will force the government to do away with discriminatory practices existing in federal programs. In the South, the Mississippi group will inform the Negro community of the many federal programs which can be of social and economic benefit to it.