Repeal Of Students’ Decision Sought

Press, Volume CVIII, Issue 31771, 30 August 1968, Page 1

Repeal Of Students’ Decision Sought

Mr Wnght, who yesterday resigned from the executive of the Canterbury University Students’ Association, is seeking rescission of its decision to approve in principle the installation of contraceptive-vending machines.

He will move to this effect at a special general meeting of the association on September 9.

He will also ask the association to record its disapproval of “the untimely and ill-con-ceived actions of the executive in bringing disrepute to itself, the association and the university.”

In his letter of resignation to the association's president (Mr P. G. Nathan), who, he said, shared his views, Mr Wright said he could no longer publicly associate himself with a committee which had publicly and inexcusably discredited the association and the university. “At a time when the universities face urgent financial, staffing and building programmes, the executive has chosen to concentrate public attention on the extra-mari-tal sex life of the student population,” he said. “I am appalled that, on a matter of personal conscience, the extravagances which were once the prerogative of a largely-discredited Bohemian minority are being promulgated by the elected executive of the association and foisted on the public as a genuine reflection of the views of students at largfe.

“Equally disconcerting to me is the fact that, even if a majority of students were retrospectively. to uphold the decision to install contraceptive-

vending machines, the decision and the ensuing publicity were both master-minded during the university vacation when students at large could not .be consulted.”

Mr Wright said he had already recorded his objection on grounds that the machines would not lessen purchasers' embarrassment, lower the pregnancy rate markedly, nor provide a sane stimulus for discussion of sex education or illegitimacy. He believed the task of the executive was to improve the association but that it had chosen to debase the association and itself. “I can see no alternative but to tender my resignation with the faint hope that the public will not judge my student peers on the basis of those who, to date, have been my executive peers,” said Mr Wright Absence From Meetings Miss C. L. McCurdy has not attended meetings of the executive recently because of illness. A report in “The Press” yesterday said that she was not present when the executive affirmed its approval in principle of the installation of contraceptive-vending machines in Student Union buildings. “To correct any impression that may have been given by the reporting of my absences from recent executive meetings, I would like to make it quite clear that my absences were caused by illness and not by any desire to avoid the issues involved,” said Miss McCurdy last evening. The Press Association reports that a spokesman for the Justice Department said

yesterday that the sale of contraceptives by Vending machines at Canterbury University would probably be legal. "We don’t know of anything that makes it illegal,” he said. “To sell, or supply, or give contraceptives to anybody under 16 is an offence, but if the university had the machines in a suitable position they could be used.” The president of the New Zealand University Students* Association (Mr D. Shand) said in Wellington that he did not feel the Canterbury association's decision involved the national student organisation. “These things are up to individual students’ associations,” he said. He did not feel the trend would spread to Victoria University or others. The president of the National Council of Women (Mrs L. W. Tiller) said: “I have had two letters on the subject and the matter will be raised at our October conference. My personal opinion is one of concern.”