Letters....

Academic Emasculations

Dear Sir, two students have been expelled and one suspended from Canterbury University for taking drugs. The Vice-Chancellor said in a statement to the press that the students had not been expelled earlier, but had been allowed to enrol because no action could be taken against them during recess when they were not properly members of the University. What rubbish! It is the practice, for instance, with students who have been excluded for unsatisfactory performance, to advise them during recess that they will not be allowed to re-enrol. I believe the Professor of Canterbury wanted their action to be as public as possible.

Two years ago the Vice-Chancellor of Canterbury took a stand against drug taking students. If discovered, he said, they would be sent down. I note that after this pronouncement a small group of students began to play with drugs. Late last year a girl died as a consequence. Now it is too late for the Vice-Chancellor to show any of the dispassionate concern for truth that is proper in a member of the university. He must embark on a public witch-hunt to justify himself and the University.

If the Professors of Canterbury are forsaking the tradition of freedom and dissociation so vital to the University, they should not do so in order to stricture and coniine the lives of their students. They should remember that for them, the poor, there is no action, but only to wait and to witness.

John McMurray.