PROTECTING AGITATORS

Writing in the current issue of the "Bulletin of the American Association of University Professors," Professor Holcombe challenges the paternalistic attitude adopted by University authorities in cases where students have been associated with breaches of the peace. While urging colleges to indulge in no "false sentimentality" when men have failed to keep within the law, he avers that "the important matter is to establish fairly the respective rights of student agitators and police when collisions do unhappily occur, and to stand by the students, when they have kept within the law."

While such an attitude is doubtless admirable for its liberality, the difficulties consequent upon its practice are obvious. Under the policy Professor Holcombe advocates, universities would be faced with the difficult and dangerous task of deciding when students have kept "within the law." This task is in no sense fitting to a university, which cannot be considered a competent judge of legal matters. More important, however, is the fact that a student's activities outside the campus are solely his own affair. If he chooses to run the risk of participating in violent demonstrations on questions political or otherwise, he must expect to find himself involved in difficulties for which he may or may not be responsible. Whether or no he oversteps the bounds of the law, he must accept the same penalty as would be meted out to an ordinary citizen. The mere fact that he is a student entitles him to no special consideration.

Were college authorities to "stand by" student agitators in the nebulous twilight zone between legal right and wrong, the encouragement to radical elements would inevitably have serious consequences and draw universities into a sphere wholly beyond their province.