Crackdown on Protesters

Harvard decided last week that there is a point at which student demonstrations against the Viet Nam war go beyond what a university can tolerate. That point is when protests physically interfere with the freedom of others.

On this ground, school officials placed 74 students on probation for their "forcible obstruction" of a Dow Chemical Company recruiter on campus (TIME, Nov. 3). Probation means that the students must attend all classes, cannot hold office in campus organizations or perform in a dramatic or musical production or compete in intercollegiate athletics.

Explaining Harvard's action, President Nathan Pusey defended the basic right of the university's students to express their views on all matters and demonstrate in "an orderly fashion." But he warned that they must not "become so carried away by their conviction about the Tightness of their cause and so impatient with civilized procedures that they seek to restrain the freedom of expression or movement of others who may not agree with them. This kind of conduct is simply unacceptable, not only in a community devoted to intellectual endeavor, but in any decent democratic society."

Other college administrators were also getting tough with overly aggressive demonstrators. At the University of Iowa, officials called in off-campus police to clear out demonstrators blocking a building where Marine recruiters hoped to hold interviews. The police arrested 108 students, charged them with disturbing the peace. Brown University notified 18 students that they face undisclosed penalties unless they successfully defend themselves in campus hearings against charges of interfering with a CIA recruiter.

The get-tough policy even extended to demonstrations that had nothing to do with the war. In Manhattan, a group of nature-lovers from City College of New York took their stand before a ditchdigger breaking ground for a new building that protesters claimed would destroy much of the remaining greenery on the crowded campus. C.C.N.Y. President Buell Gallagher watched disenchantedly for a while, then turned to city police and ordered: "Move in on them now." The police arrested 49 students, charged them with criminal trespassing.

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