University of Virginia Library

Squelching Students

Among the many items to be considered
by the General Assembly in its special session
next week is a bill designed to "curb the
current trend of student and faculty disruption
of the educational system." The bill is
sponsored by Delegate Harrison Mann of
Arlington, and would require the immediate
dismissal of all student and faculty "agitators,"
whether or not the school involved
desired the dismissals.

The bill covers several broad and overlapping
areas, of which the most important to
the University is the issue of freedom of
expression. The problem here is that Mr.
Mann's bill fails to define what activities
would be illegal, allowing the conclusion that
any protest would be prohibited, including
the demonstrations here last week.

Mr. Mann attempted to clarify this
problem with The Cavalier Daily yesterday.
Trying to make a distinction between
constitutional free expression and "disrupting
the educational system," the best he could
offer was that "sit-ins, boycotts, occupying
property, or breach of the peace" were illegal.
In other words, a demonstration on the Lawn
would be grounds for dismissing the participants.
We consider this no distinction at all;
furthermore, without guaranteeing the
right of peaceful protest this bill would
inevitably run into the Supreme Court's
recent ruling in Iowa protecting non-disruptive
dissent.

The state legislature has, and should have,
no more power to require the discipline of
University students than it has over city police
departments; this power is a function of the
institution, not the state legislature.

On the one hand, then, the Mann Act
would remove from the educational institutions
the right to deal with their members
on their own terms, while on the other it
would deny the constitutional safeguards
inherent in free expression. Curbing student
unrest would, under this legislation, be
equivalent to stifling any protest at all. We
agree with Delegate J. H. Michael of
Charlottesville, who said "I don't see any
reason for this bill - the institution itself is
the agency that must determine how to
discipline its members."

The Mann Act also touches on another
important issue - legislative control of faculty
members. One provision would give the
Assembly the power to withhold faculty
salaries; another touches directly on demonstrations,
providing for required dismissal of
any "dissident" faculty member who supports
student demonstrators. The first idea is
inherently ridiculous in that the legislature
could think itself able to judge the worth of a
professor or even devote the time to study the
situation. We have enough legislative control
of salaries here now - it is the legislature's
control of our non-academic wages that keeps
the University's workers at wage levels far
from adequate.

This second section seems little more than
another attempt to squelch free expression,
aimed specifically at the faculties of our
state's educational institutions. Perhaps it is
discomforting for the legislature to know that
faculty members agree with the students who
demand improvement in our colleges, for the
provision states that a professor could be
dismissed merely for supporting a protest,
even without taking part. If the bill passes, no
faculty member could express himself on an
important issue, no faculty member could
dare to disagree with the legislature that
controls his salary, and no professor in his
right mind would take a job here.

The end sought by the Mann Act would
not be achieved by its implementation. The
Delegate from Arlington has offered his bill
"to curb the trend of unrest," yet we wonder
how the bill would be transformed into the
action it requires if such disruption occurred
in Virginia. Is the General Assembly composed
of full-time businessmen meeting every
two years concerned and well-informed
enough to review the delicate, explosive
situations of boycotts and sit-ins in such a
manner as to enforce its law? We feel the
University itself, as well as the state's other
educational institutions, can best handle their
discipline without interference from the state
legislature. Furthermore, if in extreme cases
violence actually prevents a college from
holding classes, the President now has the
power to ask the Governor for help.

The Mann Act is the wrong reaction to the
whole problem of student unrest. Student
protest is not, as a few short-sighted legislators
would believe, the result of "conspiracies and
agitators;" more often it is a reflection of
student concern for the inequities and
shortcomings of our educational institutions.
In a time when our black students say the
University has a racial "sickness," when our
admissions policies are still filled with subtle
discriminations, when our wage policies keep
a major portion of Charlottesville at bare
subsistence levels, it seems ludicrous that the
legislators would direct their attention not to
the problems but to squelching the natural
expression of protest to them. We urge the
legislature to consider what is really wrong
with its colleges rather than how to prevent
students and faculty from making the
inequities known. - ROM