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From Labor Action, Vol. 14 No. 23, 5 June 1950, p. 3.
Transcribed & marked up by Einde O’Callaghan for ETOL.
MADISON. Wis. – Those University of Wisconsin students who picketed the annual federal inspection of the ROTC [see Labor Action last week] have been given an “official reprimand” and have been placed on disciplinary probation for the next full semester. Thus another brick in the none-too-solid wall of American civil liberties has been chipped out.
The University Student Conduct Committee based its decision on the statement that the pickets were interfering “with regularly scheduled university classes or with officially authorized public exercises or ceremonies.” The students were interfering by picketing “the activities of our group within an area set aside for that group.”
How were the students interfering? By carrying their banners so that all could see them. In another “public ceremony,” a football game, a few years ago, some U. of W. students raised a banner personally insulting the coach of the Wisconsin team. No action at all was taken against them. If these same students had carried banners praising compulsory ROTC and militarism, no action would have been taken against them. It would have been attributed to “youthful enthusiasm.”
Previous to the demonstration the group had checked university and municipal regulations and had found none prohibiting peaceful picketing. The Student Conduct Committee in its report said that “statutes would have been found which, to say the least, would throw grave doubt on the legality of what was done.” However, no legal charges were brought against the pickets. The pickets apparently were acting in “bad taste.”
Any definition of bad taste is certainly an arbitrary one, open to all varieties of interpretation. When President Truman appeared on that campus during his election campaign, he was roundly booed by many students. The university took no action against this example of “bad taste.” It is different, apparently, when students protest meaningfully against an idea which is popular with the university officialdom.
The counsel for the pickets said that the university investigation had “all the aspects of a star chamber or inquisitorial probe. The students are denied counsel; are called in individually and the faculty group is attempting to treat the civil liberties issues involved as a standard case of student misconduct or bad manners.
“Students feel that the primary issue is their right peaceably to assemble and to protest in an orderly manner, and not a question of good manners.
“Students are directed to appear before the committee, with no charges being filed against them. They made their protest in good conscience and this right cannot be abridged by the university faculty.
“All student groups were invited to the ROTC inspection and the parade of the pickets, I am reliably informed, was accomplished in an orderly manner.”
The governor of Wisconsin, in a speech before the Reserve Officers Association, bitterly attacked the students who “had the guts to carry anti-military signs at the federal inspection.” The governor asked Wisconsin taxpayers why they allowed students from New York and New Jersey to come here and “plan to tear down what the ROTC boys are trying to build up for America.”
Apparently today it takes “guts” to exercise elementary democratic rights. The place of a person’s birth would seem, according to the governor, to be important in determining whether one can criticize while in the sovereign state of Wisconsin!
The picketing against compulsory ROTC would have been unnecessary had the state legislature and university taken into account the desires of the student body. Many meetings and forums had been held on this issue. The Young Republicans had introduced a bill in the state legislature abolishing compulsory ROTC. It was not passed, in spite of the fact that referendums held among university Students showed that, of those who voted, more than 70 per cent were against compulsory ROTC. Student beliefs and feelings on this issue have been consistently ignored.
There has been a good response to this denial of civil liberties by the students and faculty. A committee to defend the students’ rights has been formed and has begun to circulate petitions which disapprove of the university’s action. Various liberal and religious groups here in Madison have started to back the students. The liberal paper here, the Capital Times, had an editorial entitled Bludgeoning Students Out of Their American Rights and one attacking the university decision entitled University Committee Buckles Under Pressure from Big Business Board of Regents.
The students involved are planning to appeal the decision to the University Committee on Appeals.
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Last updated on 6 February 2024