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Salient. Victoria University Student Newspaper. Volume 33 No. 4. 7 April 1970

Exclusion procedures

Exclusion procedures

Sir,

I suppose in retrospect, your last front page and editorial on the exclusion of unsatisfactory students were funny. I had thought, however, that Salient would be interested in my attempt to repair some of the distortions and omissions, and in the rationale for my (surely remarkable) claims that there was a genuine and extremely important grievance, that I gave students all the information I was (in the circumstances) able to in the matter, that in resolving it we used means appropriate to the situation, and that a satisfactory result was achieved.

So recently I told you I wanted to submit an article.

"What on?" you asked.

"A reply to your tripe on the exclusion affair," says I.

"You can submit a letter."

"Brr," says I.

"And you should limit it to 250 words. Is that O.K.?"

"No," says I.

"Well I'm not going to have anyone outside Salient dictating its editorial policy. You could always issue a broadsheet."

It is perhaps wise when launching a less than honest attack on a public statement, to refrain from printing that Statement But is not even wisdom taken too far when it limits the reply to one tenth the length of the attack?

Who am I, however, to question your wisdom?—though if your wisdom be granted, possibly a re-reading of your editorial will show that wisdom has little to do with logic. The 'news' section, however, was a masterpiece.

Who else but you could have written such a clear (if misleading) account of the regulations and procedures regarding the exclusion of unsatisfactory students, in view of the obvious and admitted confusion in this matter of academics, administrators and lawyers at the University Council?

Who else but you, Sir, could have failed to notice the fact that letters had gone out advising students of the result of appeals before the Committee of Council had finally determined the appeals?

Who else but you, Sir, would have been able to give such profound meaning to meaningless, misleading and incomplete figures by simply repeating them three times like a magic spell?

Who else but you could criticise a man for being unfair to the bureaucracy and also for not breaking its ethic of secrecy?

Bill Logan

(Editor's Note: 376 words. Tsk. Tsk.)