Yale undergrads say they file charges against their president for violations

Yale University undergraduates who have been largely involved in a pro-labor effort said yesterday they filed university disciplinary charges against their president, Richard Levin.

Thomas Frampton, a Yale freshman who drafted the eight pages of charges and gave a copy to The Daily Princetonian, said 76 undergraduates signed the complaint, which alleged that Levin had not upheld university policies supporting freedom of expression. The complaint also alleged that Levin has not cooperated with workers and the New Haven community.

Levin could not be reached for comment yesterday. Yale spokesman Tom Violante said Levin received a memo from students but refused to comment further.

.....If Yale finds Levin guilty, the students said he could be suspended or expelled. The decision will be up to Yale College Dean Richard Brodhead, to whom the students gave the charges today, the students said in a statement. Brodhead is supposed to appoint an investigator and committee to look into the matter, the students said.

Brodhead could not be reached to confirm he received the complaint.

Yale has faced high-profile labor disputes this term. Levin has had difficulty negotiating with the local union of 4,000 employees, whose last contract with the university expired in January. Large protests by workers, graduates and undergraduates have been commonplace on and around the Yale campus this fall. Workers unsatisfied with wages and pensions also are trying to link their new contract with organizing drives among graduate students and workers at Yale-New Haven hospital.

Some of the students associated with the complaint are members of the young group the Undergraduate Organizing Committee, which has campaigned on behalf of workers.

The students said they went to Levin's office yesterday afternoon to deliver the complaint personally. Frampton said they did not see the president, but said Levin asserted his "5th amendment" right outside his office during a rally by the students.

In the cover letter to the charges, the students write that Levin has been "unresponsive" to their concerns. "We regretfully feel that our only remaining option is to use the formal procedures within the Undergraduate Regulations to force action on the aforementioned issues," they write.

The complaint has four counts. Each quotes Yale's undergraduate regulations and then describes the infraction.

The students said Levin "has acted complicitly" in letting authorities detain students handing out leaflets in Yale's Woolsey Hall advertising a student forum and a statement for employee pensions. Frampton said he was one of these students.

They also say Levin later misrepresented university policy on the detentions. Levin addressed a meeting Oct. 29 in which he said it was a violation of university regulations for undergraduates to distribute fliers in Woolsey Hall, they said, noting that he revised the assertion several times after the students said he was misrepresenting policies.

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"We demand our right to a formal hearing on the charge of repeated misrepresentation of an official university document," they write in the charges.

They also criticize Levin for failing to intervene appropriately when Yale employees and graduate students were arrested at protests outside Yale-New Haven hospital last month. Prosecutors did not pursue the case.

Frampton said the first count of the complaint, that Levin did not maintain "mutual respect and charitable relations" with the Yale community, is flimsiest of the four.

"Our community is not just the university. It's our city," Frampton said. He said the group wants to avoid a strike by the 4,000 workers.

He did not express much optimism that a hearing could be avoided. It would take "a concrete demonstration, some concrete steps that were acted upon" by the administration to avoid one, he said.