The Legislatures React

Among the fruits of this year's campus disorders is a harvest of state laws that student activists might well ponder this summer. Reflecting majority disapproval across the country, the laws will make campus protest far riskier next fall. Some disruptive tactics, in fact, are now legally denned as felonies, with penalties of up to five and even ten years in prison.

In California, the state legislature is digging out from a blizzard of 100 bills, many of them originally introduced for political mileage rather then passage. A legislative committee has winnowed those bills to twelve proposed laws and resolutions. If enacted, as expected, the measures will make it a misdemeanor to disturb the peace of any campus, command additional campus disciplinary action against convicted students, cancel their state financial aid for two years, and require all public campuses to develop specific codes of student behavior. New York's Governor Nelson Rockefeller has vetoed three stringent bills as "premature," including one that would have taken away disrupters' state scholarships. Even so, Rockefeller has signed three other bills that outlaw unauthorized firearms on campus, require new codes of campus behavior, and create a state commission to study the causes of college unrest.

According to a 50-state survey, conducted for TIME by the National Education Association, most legislatures have ignored the reasons for student protest in favor of simply halting it. At least eleven states have passed new laws aimed at curbing campus disruptions, although not all the bills have yet been signed by the respective Governors. These states are Arkansas, Colorado, Idaho, Iowa, Minnesota, Nevada, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Texas, Wisconsin and South Carolina, where the bill provides for the immediate expulsion of disrupters after a hearing. Oklahoma's law (now signed) specifies that persons convicted of inciting riots can be imprisoned for ten years.

Several states have passed laws aimed at keeping nonstudent agitators off campus. The legislatures of Colorado, Oklahoma, Maryland and Tennessee have approved bills that apply private trespass rules to public campuses, or otherwise control the presence of nonstudents. Tennessee's law makes it a felony for nonstudents to enter school property "to incite, participate in, aid or assist a riot." Possible penalty: five years in the state penitentiary.

Rules for Riots. Tactics in other states range from mere admonition to measures of sharp severity. Indiana's legislature passed no new laws, but Governor Edgar D. Whitcomb officially reminded trustees in the state university system that they may be replaced if they do not back up the Governor's "respectful demand" for absolute compliance with existing laws.

West Virginia went to the other extreme by enacting what may be the most sweeping antiriot law in the country. The new law, which went into effeet last week, empowers state troopers, sheriffs or mayors to invoke riot-control procedures, bypassing the old requirement that a judge or justice of the peace must declare that a civil disturbance is a riot. Law officers can deem anyone a rioter who fails to obey a lawful order or provide requested assistance. The police are free to deputize onlookers, who will automatically be guiltless if any person present is subsequently killed or wounded, provided no malice or premeditation is involved. The law allows officers to cordon off any area, prohibit the sale of guns or alcohol, impose curfews, and enter private dwellings when in fresh pursuit of a rioter or when searching for firearms or explosives. Violation of any orders under the law can mean a fine of $500, six months in jail, or both.

The backlash against student violence continues to gain strength. In North Carolina, for example, the state legislature is now weighing five bills dealing with campus disorder, with penalties ranging from revocation of scholarships to six months in jail. Connecticut, Illinois, Michigan and Wisconsin all have legislation pending, and other states are still to be heard from.

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