HANOVER, N.H.--Twelve Dartmouth College students who had been suspended for staging a sledgehammer attack on symbolic anti-apartheid shanties will get a new hearing, the Ivy League school's president ruled.

President David T. McLaughlin, in a letter sent to the 12 Wednesday evening, said he agreed with the finding of independent counsel that "because of certain procedural aspects of the committee's proceeding, a rehearing should be directed." He did not elaborate.

Cary Clark, the school's counsel, declined to specify what irregularities were noted by the independent attorney, Jack Middleton, former president of the New Hampshire Bar Association. Middleton was not at his office Wednesday night and could not be reached for comment.

Clark disagreed with an assertion by the editor of The Dartmouth Review, an off-campus conservative weekly with whom most of the 12 students are affiliated, that McLaughlin implicitly admitted treating the students unfairly in a letter he issued.

"There may have been procedural irregularities, but it's not clear to me that this resulted in an unfair hearing," Clark said.

Dartmouth's discipliary board on Feb. 11 suspended the 12 for their Jan. 21 pre-dawn raid on the shanties, which anti-apartheid protesters had built on the campus green. Nobody was injured in the attack.

Four of the 12--all highranking members of the Review--were suspended indefinitely, seven students were suspended for two terms, and one former Review photographer was suspended for one term.

McLaughlin wrote that College Dean Edward Shanahan said a new panel of disciplinary committee members will be chosen, and that the rehearing would probably be held by the end of next week.

The 12 will be allowed to remain on campus, take final exams, and receive credit for course work for this term, which ends Wednesday, McLaughlin said.

"However, your standing with the college for all other purposes remains open pending final decisions in your cases," he wrote.

Current President

It was not immediately clear how that would affect Frank Reichel, the Review's current president and a senior who is scheduled to complete his degree requirements by next week.

Clark, the college counsel, said he was not familiar with Reichel's situation but said the school's trustees "only grant degrees to students in good standing."

McLaughlin also said that should the 12 appeal the decision reached in the rehearing, "fairness dictates" that he would appoint someone else to hear the appeal on his behalf.

Roland Reynolds, outgoing editor of the Review, said he is "glad that the president recognized the gross unfairness of the first hearing. But I hope this second hearing won't be used as a sort of witch hunt."