SCHOOL FOR SCANDAL L.S.E. MILITANTS LEAD “REVOLUTIONARY” MOVEMENT

Press, Volume CIX, Issue 31908, 8 February 1969, Page 12

SCHOOL FOR SCANDAL L.S.E. MILITANTS LEAD “REVOLUTIONARY” MOVEMENT

(Reprinted from the “Economist” by arrangement) LONDON, February I.—During the Christmas vacation, nine steel gates were installed inside the London School of Economics (L.S.E.), so that the authorities could open or close various parts of the school independently. They did this because the advocates of student power had threatened more than once to take the place over. Last Friday, after a vote had overturned a student union decision of the previous day, a group of students destroyed most of the gates. The director of L.S.E., Dr Walter Adams, then, properly, closed the school.

The L.S.E. had been formally closed, but occupied by students, during the weekend of the anti-Vietnam war demonstration last October 27. Since then, both students and staff had expected that Dr Adams might be moved to take a stronger stand against the proponents of revolutionary socialism. On Monday this week a couple of hundred students (out of 3000) marched to the L.S.E. in protest against the closure, to find it ringed by police. Terrible threats were uttered by the revolutionaries of disruption in many more universities unless Dr Adams caved in. But as a signal for the student millennium, the closure of L.S.E. appears to have lit only a very slow burning fuse. It may fizzle out completely, with no more than a last gesture from the students designed to save a few faces—for the moment There would be more hope of prolonged peace if the authorities could bring themselves to salvage some of the students’ precious dignity for them. But such an amicable conclusion is, this time, probably impossible. Serious Damage For the first time in two years of large-scale student protests, serious damage has been done to property in a British university by its students. It might be argued that rifling the vice-chan-cellor’s files, as the students at Birmingham University did last term, is more objectionable than smashing up L.S.E.’s gates. It is, however, less violent. There is an overwhelming feeling in Britain that student violence must now be punished. Some students will be dealt with by the courts: about 30 went before the magistrates as a result of Friday’s riot L.S.E. secured a court injunction on Thursday against thirteen people (six of them from overseas). But some students will have to be dealt with by L.S.E. itself. It is impossible for L.S.E. to abdicate all responsibility to the courts, and it would be wrong to take no action against the troublemakers. The authorities should probably rusticate the worst offenders. But if this sour business is

handled badly, any settlement of the immediate problem—getting L.S.E. reopened and working peaceably—will be short-lived. Those who urge the authorities to have a showdown with the militants should remember just what this can cost At Essex University last year, the vicechancellor, Dr Albert Sloman, expelled three students in what was thought to be an arbitrary manner, with unnecessary disruptive results. Dedicated Extremists A few student extremists, with some elderly adherents, are seriously dedicated to the destruction of their universities, as a step on the improbable road to destroying the present, liberal society. It will be a bad defeat for that society if the administrators, who are if anything over-convinced of the students’ revolutionary aims, should fail to match the students’ tactics with a little diplomacy of their own. The stake is the loyalty of the overwhelming majority of students, a foolish proportion of which will join with the militants if the authorities and staff do not take trouble with them and their own particular, less ambitious worries. The majority of L.S.E. student* were against smashing the gates. They are also against retaking L.S.E. by force. It is important to keep repeating this, since the antistudent backlash in all classes is not selective. But L.S.E. is vulnerable to disruption because protest, demonstration, and organisation are so much laboratory practice for many of the courses it teaches. It is also peculiarly open to militant action because it is in the centre of London, with a reserve of students at other colleges from whom the militants can recruit. (Though on Monday night the diehard L.S.E. squatters at the University of London Union were finally evicted by Rugby-playing medical students, the anti-intelligent-sia had struck back at last.) Some Contemptible Dons L.S.E. is also vulnerable because it has expanded fast, and contains a large number of young dons who have not been absorbed into the school’s establishment. A few of these have behaved with a contemptible irresponsibility towards their young and green students, and with the most bare-faced disloyalty to their employers. The authorities are now to bring at least three junior staff before a disciplinary committee. Many of the others, understandably

but regrettably, have disappeared to get oh with their own work while the school ♦ is closed, leaving the students without their natural mediators with the authorities. A few dons were conscientious enough to keep in contact without conniving at the revolutionaries’ foolish schemes. It is up to them to . warn their students of the danger of a backlash from the public—which has now, in fact, been given the official go-ahead by the Secretary of State for Education, Mr Edward Short. Mr Short fulminated against the L.S.E. “thugs,” as he called them, in the Commons on Wednesday, saying what many an irate parent and tax-payer must have said seeing the whole business on the fireside telly. What was ' worrying about Mr ■ Short's ■ righteous anger were the apparent hints to local authorities to start interfer- • ing, by cutting students’ grants, whether their recipients were rioters or noL It is to be hoped that the local authorities have more sense than that ' Students Demands Met Ten years ago, British . university authorities were immovably uninterested in . student protest and student ■ representation. Since then, !in progressive institutions ■ such as L.S.E. in particular, . some very well-intentioned . efforts have been made to change their constitutions to ; suit the students' demands . and needs. It is Important , that such intentions continue ' to be in evidence. But academics are not as thick-skinned as labour reflations officers in industry, and many have been utterly ; dismayed by the violent t behaviour and utterances of ■ their pupils. L.S.E. will not , be reopened until the board of governors is convinced that there is no danger to life or property. With their exams due to begin in April, the students would be foolish not to reassure Dr Adams on that point as soon as possible, and get access again to the books in the L.S.E.’s superb library. Both sides could then argue it out about the ' offending gates in something bearing a better resemblance to tranquil, academic peace —at least until the next time. On Thursday evening a “militant march” of students to the L.S.E. was due to take place. At best, this could delay the reopening of the school. At worst, it could . degenerate into another unproductive struggle with the luckless police. The revolutionaries do not mind either result: that is why they arewrong and must be beaten.