University of Virginia Library

May's Daze

The entire code's raisond'etre
stems from last May's daze — the
liberation of buildings and minds so
disruptive of timeless tradition. The
administration was, and is, justifiably
concerned about coercive and
non-rational forms of expression.
Building take-overs do not promote
the free exchange of ideas, they
limit the freedom of ROTC cadets
who want to use the buildings for
more humane purposes, they seek
to coerce rather than persuade, so
argue the administrators.

But the new code of conduct,
now that is something else. It promotes
the free exchange of ideas —
ex post facto, it does not limit the
freedom of anyone wishing to use
the ROTC buildings for humane
purposes during working hours, it
seeks to persuade such people as
the Judiciary Committee, after a
student has been summarily
suspended.

Mr. Shannon beautifully states
the need for student self-government
in his introduction to the
code and then somehow assumes
that because Jay Wilkinson and
some other former U.Va. students
are on the Board they qualify to
self-regulate the student body.

After years of patient persuasion
by students that we definitely need
a sense of participation, the reality
of self-government, if we are not to
make a mockery of Mr. Jefferson's
concept of the community of scholars,
the administration still
announces rather than persuades.
Perhaps they feel students just
don't care anymore. Perhaps they
know the student body would not
come up with such carefully repressive
but civil libertarianly brilliant
legal gems as interim suspension.
Perhaps ....