Three panelists examined the in which the civil rights struggle has influenced law enforcement vice-versa Friday night at the end of three Harvard Law forums on civil rights.

Speaking were Howard formerly of the civil rights of the Justice Department; Meltsner, counsel for the Legal Defense Fund; and Zinn, professor of government at Boston University.

and Meltsner John Doer, head of the civil division of the Justice Department, who was kept in Washington because of the signing of the rights bill.)

said that despite shortings, previous voting had not been completely ineffective. In many places, local had "seen the writing on the and had allowed Negroes to . He cited Macon County as an example.

Addressing himself to the that Justice Department suits would have been based on the 14th rather than on technical points, he argued that if the had ruled in matters of rights, there would merely have "the same sort of massive as after the 1954 .

said that the law can serve register the gains that people fought for."

Regarding "the shortcomings of role of the law in effecting change," Zinn said there were problems. The first is "the gap exists always between law and . What happened in Selma the role of citizens in that gap," he asserted.

In second problem, he said, was to get tired and assume the done" after and assume the done" after the 1965 bill. in a long history of negligence in enforcing the law," he

if to use now laws are , he explained, the Negro will still have to face the other problems of poverty and will have to resort to demonstrations for redress of grievances.

"And when the Negro attempts to move towards these ends he's going to be confronted with a policeman with a club," he predicted. He asserted that the federal government therefore "must fulfill its responsibility of protecting people against violence in the deep South."

Meltsner pointed out that "the law not only registers goals, but it sets them. Without law, the sit-ins would have been impossible," he said. He suggested that demonstrators should also think it terms of using existing legal channels to obtain their ends. "Getting laws may be a question of demonstrations, but getting them to work is more sophisticated.