Universities’ View Of Students’ Files

Press, Volume CIX, Issue 32235, 2 March 1970, Page 13

Universities’ View Of Students’ Files

(ft .Z.P. A.-Reuter—Copyright) LONDON, March 1. Britain’s university heads have said that the universities are not interested in, and should not keep, files on students’ political activities.

More than 1000 students at Manchester University had spent their second night occupying administrative buildings to demand an independent inquiry into the allegations of political files, and some students at Oxford were sitting-in for the fourth night. At Warwick University, where the trouble began, students threatened to stay on for a week at the beginning of the Easter holidays for a "work-in.” Students at some other universities and colleges are also demanding access to files. The university principals issued a statement to this effect after a meeting with student leaders, against a background of sit-ins and other protests at universities and colleges. Students, and some university staff members, have alleged that the universities keep details of their political activities.

The university heads agreed to allow students to see files containing their basic academic records, but they will not throw open the confidential assessments of individuals.

But the statement said clearly: “The universities are not interested in, and should not keep, files about the political or religious opinions, or affiliations, of their members, or about their political activities within the law."