Unexpected Report

Amid the public indignation that followed disruptions at Columbia, Cornell and other New York campuses last year, the state legislature set up a Temporary Commission to Study the Causes of Campus Unrest. Many expected the commission--six legislators, a banker, an educator and a former city councilman--to recommend tough laws against student revolts. But last week the commission reported that serious trouble occurred at only eleven of New York's 212 colleges--and it praised the students' "sincerity and honesty."

According to the report, outside agitators were not significantly involved, and no new laws are necessary to prevent disruption. Marijuana laws should be relaxed, said the Commission, student participation increased and the voting age lowered. Last year Commission Chairman Charles D. Henderson, a Republican state assemblyman, helped to draft a law compelling laggard college authorities to maintain order and denounced S.D.S. as "Students for Demolishing Society." Last week his prologue to the report sounded a far calmer note. "While few may want to admit it," he wrote, "the dissent of youth may have done more for higher education than any legislative body, offices of education or groups of educators simply because public attention has been focused on a burgeoning sick system and explosive societal ills."

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