Pro-Chancellor rubbishes N.Z. Press

By Les Slater

Last Tuesday in LB1, Thurgood Marshall, Associate Justice of the US Supreme Court, was bestowed by VUW with the degree of honorary Doctor of Laws.

In LB2 below, with only Standing room, the ceremony and address were observed on closed circuit TV.

The Pro-Chancellor, Mr R. S. V. Simpson, welcomed Thurgood Marshall, and opened the fourth lecture of the series of ten or human rights.

Speaking of human rights and the right to dissent, the Pro-Chancellor mentioned the much publicised demonstration of the previous week. He outlined the distortion of events, and said that freedom of the press carried with it the duty to report "fairly and factually".

In summarizing the events, Mr Simpson said that members of the University had examined the reported incidents and had concluded that students were not the instigators or solely involved in the violence that had occurred.

"On the contrary, it would seem that the students were not responsible for the diplomatic car incident." he said. Mr Simpson said that it did the press no credit that some newspaper opinion was so hasty and unfounded. "In the main the student behaviour was that of people with a sense of responsibility," he said.

Thurgood Marshall, visiting New Zealand under the John F. Kennedy Memorial Fund fellowship, thanked the University for the honour it had bestowed upon him.

His address was tilled "Human Rights: An American View", and was mainly on the civil rights movement in the US, the US Constitution, and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

He Spoke on the history of the civil rights movement and the histories of the US Constitution and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

Speaking on the UDHR. Thurgood Marshall said "and I might add as an aside, that neither your country or mine have adopted it". He emphasized that the UDHR spoke of "all human beings, not some, but all Not everyone except some, but all," and "everyone, not just some people or most people, but everyone". He received prolonged applause.

Finally, the Minister of Justice, the Hon. Ralph Hanan spoke on the dual responsibility of law and public and individual responsibility. He mentioned in reference to the US civil rights issue that New Zealand as well as the US had discriminatory laws, between the Maoris and the pakehas, but these were gradually being eliminated, "but unfortunately we would require the services of a US Supreme Court if we were to remove them all, because the Maoris are the ones who want them to remain, because they discriminate in favour of Maoris".

"Only recently," he said, "have we been able to abolish separate Maori schools, because for many years it was the Maoris who wanted them that way."