"A serious drift in the standards of American education" is the issue at stake in his public battle with the Tufts University administration, Woodrow Wilson Sayre said in a telephone interview last night.

Sayre, a mountain-climbing assistant professor of Philosophy at Tufts and a grandson of Woodrow Wilson, has been denied tenure because of his "failure to publish scholarly research." The chairman of the philosophy department, George B. Burch, had recommended that Sayre be reappointed without limit of time.

Charles E. Stearns, Dean of the Faculty, notified Sayre last October that he would be dropped, but no controversy erupted until last Wednesday, when the student body learned of his dismissal.

Indignant students immediately circulated a petition calling for his reinstatement. They also organized pickets in front of the administration building Friday, and outside Cohen Auditorium Saturday, where hundreds of alumni were returning for the annual President's Day.

The students secured over 500 signatures in the first four hours; at present over 900 students and several hundred alumni have reportedly signed.

Although Sayre and his supporters maintain that the "publish-or-perish" question is the main issue, the college's action is also being contested on legal grounds. The argument revolves around the interpretation of the teuure rules of Tufts and of the American Association of University Professors (AAUP).

Sliding Scale Used

According to the Tufts Trustees' Bylaws, the maximum probation period before tenure is six years, and Sayre has been at the Medford campus since 1957. The administration, however, based its action on a sliding scale of tenure explained in the Faculty Handbook. Under these rules, Sayre would have to undergo a seven-year probation period since his arrival at Tufts as an assistant professor, the title he still holds. But the Trustees have never offically approved the sliding-scale guidelines.

Whatever the interpretation of the Tufts rules, Sayre's dismissal violutes the 1940 Statement of Principles of the AAUP, which says that a professor who has taught more than three years at one Institution should be given permanent tenure after four years at a second school. Sayre was an instructor in philosophy at Pomona College before coming to Tufts.

He appealed his case to the AAUP and to the Advisory Committee on Faculty Personnel, a five-man board made up Tufts faculty members. The Tufts committee last week upheld the administration's decision by a 4-1 vote.

Sayre said yesterday that he regretted that he was not given a chance to appear before the committee to offer a rebuttal. The final decision rests with the Trustees, who will meet April 16.

In two successive letters in December and in January, the AAUP urged that the University reconsider its decision. Failure to do so makes Tufts liable to censure at the Association's annual meeting.

Sayre denied that there is any necessary connection between good teaching and publishing. To expect one man to inspire his students, be an analyst, a dramatist and a scholar all at once breeds only mediocrity, he maintained.

A Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Williams, Sayre received his Ph. D. from Harvard