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Salient. Victoria University Student Newspaper. Volume 33 No. 15 1970

Student Rebellion: A Perspective

Student Rebellion: A Perspective

I think that some student rebellion in some countries is justified and almost inevitable, but I think it is spreading for no other reason than that it is the modern thing for young people to do. At the moment we have an extraordinary alliance between student idealists; students who are very properly dissatisfied with the conditions in which they - have to work and students who want to reform both the universities and society at large. There are student malcontents; students who are emotionally disturbed and a few students who have quite deliberately decided that, since the whole of society is rotten and must be reformed universities must be destroyed as a first step. Some English students seem to rebel against society because their universities are so good—and so permissive that they have to find a cause in the world outside—the irony of fate! It is extraordinarily difficult to reconcile the conflicting claims of these people, and for university administrators to cope with them all. They can do a great deal of damage. Few universities have ever had to deal with the disciplinary problems created by mass rebellion. All universities are vulnerable: their most important task is, and always has been, to maintain the dialogue between authority and dissent. Their tradition of free speech makes censorship impossible, and they cannot function without the cooperation of every student with all the staff.