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Show Student Insurrection CannoTBeTolerated By REP. LAURENCE J. BURTON (R Utah) Imagine, if you can, that a gang of hoodlums student hoodlums, perhaps, but hoodlums neverthe-ess neverthe-ess - were to storm the campus of Weber State College, Col-lege, seize physical possession of buildings there desecrate des-ecrate and destroy books, equipment and other 'valuable 'valu-able property, even hold captive administration of-ficials, of-ficials, and in so doing paralyze the institution and force suspension of its operation. Or if not Weber State, which I choose as an example ex-ample because it happens to be in my home town imagine that such occurrences took place at the University Uni-versity of Utah or Utah State or Brigham Young University Uni-versity or at any other institution of learning in the State. B Use Force It is hard to imagine, of course. And it is highly unlikely that events of this kind could or would occur at our Utah schools. But, for argument's sake, let us assume that this type of lawlessness did break out on a Utah campus. My question is: how should responsible re-sponsible officials react to it? My own strongly-held convictions are that physical force, in whatever amount necessary, should be immediately employed by appropriate ap-propriate law enforcement agencies to suppress the activity and place its perpetrators in custody. I do not believe for one minute that such acts should be or can be tolerated. An example, it seems to me, of how not to react to lawlessness on the campus occurred at Columbia University in New York City last week. The events described above did actually take place at Columbia Five major campus buildings, including the administration adminis-tration offices, were taken over and held for several days by agitators. The dean of the college was held captive by them for 24 hours. The hoodlums and that is exactly what they are, make no mistake about it broke into the office of the university's president, Grayson Kirk, and wantonly want-only destroyed personal mementoes, defaced photographs, photo-graphs, rifled his desk and files and carted off or destroyed de-stroyed whatever they took a mind to. These "students" "stu-dents" even urinated on the carpet in the office. No Compromise It is difficult to understand how officials at the university could permit this ugly situation to continue without taking positive steps to bring it to a halt. The buildings were actually held by the lawbreakers for several days. True, the officials attempted to negotiate. nego-tiate. But you simply do not negotiate with hoodlums. What you do, it seems to me, is move in with sufficient force to overpower the wrongdoers and you cart them off ta jail. And you insist that proper criminal charges be filed against them and that they be brought to trial for their crimes. Furthermore, you make it clear that future misconduct of this kind will meet with a similar uncompromising response. It is inconceivable to me that reasonable and responsible academic leaders lead-ers would consider doing anything else. I am not an authority on Columbia University. I did not attend there, nor have I had any particular association with the institution. But I do know that grievances in a civilized society, of which university policies are wrong, there are lawful ways through which they can' be righted. And even if there were not, when is there ever justification for doing the things that were done at Columbia? Draw Line Somehow in this country we've gotten the idea that violence is protest's working partner. Where we acquired ac-quired the idea I do not know. But the sooner we disabuse dis-abuse ourselves of this foolishiness the better. In fact, if we don't do so soon, our civilization will lie in ashes. And I do not say this lightly. After all, how much longer can we be permissive about the senseless tearing down of things that it has taken us so long to build up? As a former member of a college faculty I grieve at what has happened on some campuses. This anarchy an-archy has gone as far as it can be permitted to go. I do hope that the line has now been drawn, and that we will not tolerate any more Columbias. I am sure we will not in Utah. |
