OVERKILL

...Loftman shares with the New Left, but as president of the I.U...

...Academic Freedom" is perhaps the most abused phrase in contemporary use...

...The attacks on Guy Loftman (upper case, please) are an example...

...Their position should be defined and their freedom apportioned relative to that fact...

...Yet it is a matter which conservatives should be keenly concerned about, for obscured by the rhetoric are basic questions about bureaucracy, collectivism, and intellectual shoddiness...

...DEAR LADY BIRD, "Remember Charlie Cutler...

...Students are "probationers" in the process of initiation into the community of scholars...

...From the Akron Beacon Journal LIFE IN THE MULTIVERSITY By Tom Charles Huston The Berkeley Revolution has focused attention on contemporary problems of life in the multiversity...

...According to this definition, academic freedom is first, the prerogative of a special group, and second, an earned prerogative...

...or as Father Hesburgh, President of Notre Dame University, has recently said: "The student has come to learn, not to teach...

...He's the elderly tenant farmer living on Lady Bird Johnson's family land in Alabama...

...Some of the comments about our adversaries, notably in the second issue, were not only intemperate but tasteless...

...In the nature of academic freedom, thus defined, students cannot rightfully claim its privilege...

...Academic Freedom" and "Student Rights" have become rallying cries for many campus leftists who have wisely perceived that today's student is not thoroughly satisfied with campus life...

...It owes it to itself to reestablish without delay drastic prohibitions, solid prejudices — even if the Devil should propose a few of these — and the sacred sense of contract, under penalty of the unleashing of the bloody tyranny of the demons of the inner jungle...

...Denis de Rougemont, The Devil's Share The above quotation, written during World War II, illustrates how some of us on the Right feel about the turmoil generated around us by the New Left...

...This position is anathema to SDS and the ACLU, which appear to view South American universities as the ideal...

...The "solid prejudices" mentioned by de Rougemont are certainly being stated in The Alternative with a vengeance...

...We are driven to distraction by the ever louder calls to revolt: for Black Power, Student Power, etc...

...However, for those understanding the historical development of academic freedom, the distinction between neophyte and scholar necessarily precludes the former from sharing the privileges of academic freedom, except insofar as he benefits from at(Continued on Page 6) 5...

...The zaniness of the New Left and the emotional self-indulgence of the hippies need to be countered with intelligent criticism...

...More simply put: academic freedom is a special immunity from harrassment or reprisal granted by the community to scholars which enables them to do their duty, which is to pursue truth...

...I hope The Alternative will try harder to be just what its title implies...

...For my purposes, I have adopted the definition averred by Chicago University's Professor Richard M. Weaver, who, writing shortly before his death, offered the following definition: "Academic freedom is the freedom of scholars and researchers in institutions of higher learning to teach and to publish the results of their scholarship without interference from the institution itself or from outside interests...

...Naturally they are seeking truth along with the faculty, but unlike the professorate, they have not acquired the skills of scholarship and they have not assumed a commissioned responsibility...

...I only wish that they were expressed more temperately...

...The world came to Cutler's screen door in 1964 when two GOP Congressmen charged that he and other Johnson tenants were living in 'deplorable poverty.' Lady Bird quickly wrote to tell Cutler his roof would be fixed and the rent would stay at five dollars a month...

...It is enough having to cope with the inanities emanating from the witch's cauldron of the New Left without fouling the discussion with personal vituperation...

...T ain't heard from her since,' the seventy-eight-year-old farmer said recently...

...There are, no doubt, many absurdities that Mr...

...This definition is far more restrictive than that generally used by liberals...

...Implicit in Weaver's definition is the conviction academic freedom generally should not be mixed with student rights...

...It also points up our instinctive reaction against Flower Children, especially when the hippie subculture is being used as a recruiting ground for the shock troops of the New Left...

...Gentlemen, we are supposed to be the voice of reason and moderation, remember...

...Unfortunately, most conservatives seem to take little interest in discussing the student's role within the university community...

...As Aristotle suggested, those who seek learning must accept some matters on trust...

...student body he has shown reasonable restraint...

...This sort of verbal overkill tends to be counterproductive: the "fallout" pollutes the atmosphere, inhibits further discussion, and discredits those indulging in it...