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Lifting the Lid. Big state universities, under the eyes of legislatures, are often a bit more cautious. The University of Colorado this fall at first prevented a student group from selling the fiercely anti-Lyndon Johnson A Texan Looks at L.B.J., then granted permission after thinking it over. Indiana University refused to discipline three members of the Young Socialist Alliance whose indictments under the state antisubversive law for campus speechmaking, quashed by lower courts, have been appealed by the state to the Indiana Supreme Court. Wayne State lifted a ban against Communist speakers on campus, then retreated and barred two who had been cited for contempt of Congress for refusing to answer questions put by the House Committee on Un-American Activities. The same pair addressed 300 students at the University of Michigan without incident. "The tighter you put the lid on," says John Gustad, provost of New College, Fla., "the bigger the explosion is likely to be."
Berkeley students have blown off the lid. It now remains for them to follow the traditions of schools that have long allowed a wide range of undergraduate freedom. Mainly, such traditions consist of written and unwritten curbs that preserve the good name of the university, fix orderly procedures (booking halls for speakers, for example), and most important, do not obstruct the basic purpose of the university—providing an education.