Coping with Confrontation

The two worst ways to handle student protest are surrender and repression. Either choice splits a campus into angry factions and almost guarantees future disorders. Is there a third way--a method that retains reason yet permits confrontation?

At Dartmouth College, strong sentiment against the Viet Nam war has long focused on the nearest target: ROTC. In democratic fashion, the college last month submitted the issue to a student referendum. Duly reflecting the results, the faculty then voted to abolish ROTC over a four-year period so that incoming freshmen who are counting on miltary scholarships will not be penalized. The plan did not satisfy a radical minority led by members of Students for a Democratic Society. Calling for the immediate abolition of ROTC, they vowed to stage "an act of civil disobedience."

Instead of adopting fluster or bluster, Dartmouth's President John Sloan Dickey coolly warned that he would seek a court injunction and summon police if any buildings were seized by students. Both sides thus knew precisely where events were taking them, in sharp contrast to recent campus collisions across the country.

Ancient Aberration. When 100 radicals seized the Dartmouth administration building, Dickey & Co. went to work. Armed with an injunction, the local sheriff read it over a bullhorn and ordered the invaders to leave. Two hours later, a deputy warned the occupiers that they were liable for contempt of court. Meantime, New Hampshire Governor Walter Peterson, a Dartmouth alumnus and trustee, mustered a force of state troopers and personally directed them to shun violence.

At 3 a.m., twelve hours after the occupation began, the cops left their riot clubs behind and headed for Dartmouth. With equal calm, one radical announced over a bullhorn: "We want no violence. Do not taunt the cops. The people inside will not resist."

No one suffered a scratch. Hauled limply out of the building, 45 demonstrators, including five girls, were fined $100 apiece and sentenced to 30 days in jail. It was the harshest mass punishment of student protesters so far. It was also a proud experience for the demonstrators, who willingly paid the price for what they considered an antiwar stand. Dartmouth itself emerged with equal integrity. "My concern," says President Dickey, "is that youth's perennial commitment to a better human future should not today be betrayed by the most ancient aberration of hard-pressed humanity--the notion that anything goes in having your own way."

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