Berkeley

To the Editors of the CRIMSON:

I was much distressed by the Crimson's report of the talk I gave at Thursday's RGA meeting (Friday, Dec. 11); and I think the matter important enough to warrant correction. For one thing, I was quoted out of context, in such a way as to distort my opinion out of recognition. I did remark that the action of the Berkeley Administration had been characterized by ineptitude and stupidity, but I referred, not to their position on the issues, but rather to their tactical handling of the dispute.

What is more, I explicitly pointed out that the Administration of the University of California has always had a difficult line to walk between its obligations to the state and the taxpayers on the one hand and the students and faculty on the other; that up to this year it has performed this balancing act with some skill and has managed, by providing the safety valve of the Bancroft strip, to accxodate the needs of an increasingly active body of students and nonstudent hangers-on; and that the growing attraction of the Berkeley campus for militants and activists of all shades was proof that freedom was not being stifled. I want to make these poins now, not only because no one likes to be misunderstood, but because the Administration of the University of California has been the butt of far more criticism than it deserves.

This brings me, moreover, to the heart of the matter. My references to the blunders of the administration in the present dispute were in the nature of concessive clauses. The burden of my argument was that, whatever mistakes may have been made, the steps taken by the students to redress their grievances have been wrong, unjustified, and far more harmful. Specifically, I argued (1) that the issues of the dispute are by no means so obvious and one-sided as the so-called Free Speech Movement pretends; (2) that the obligation of the University of California to make its campus available for political action of any kind, even calls to violent and illegal measures, is a matter on which reasonable men may differ; (3) that reasonable men cannot differ reasonably on such matters under the pressure of riots, occupation of building, strikes, ultimatums, and the rest of the tactics perfected in revolutionary situations and introduced for the first time in the United States into a university context; (4) that the injection of foreign elements into the dispute -- viz., the Teamsters' Union, CORE -- has aggravated the difficulty and represents a serious breach in the jealously protected autonomy of the University from outside or sectarian influences; (5) that the force and outside pressure in this case may well set a precedent for similar action to far more dubious ends; (6) that in short, the Berkeley revolt represents the most serious assault on academic freedom in America since the McCarthy era.

In conclusion, I felt it necessary to point out the potentially deleterious consequences of this dispute for the University of California. I know personally of five or six faculty members who are leaving not because of lack of sympathy with "free speech" or "political action," but because, as one put it who wants to teach at the University of Saigon? The net result, I fear, will be a sharp decline in public support for what was the finest state university in America; a rift within the faculty and the departure of some of its best members; and the persistence of suspicion and animosity in a world where suspicion and animosity have no place. I grieve for the University of California; and I grieve for its students, who will be the real losers in the long run. David S. Landes   professor of History