University of Notre Dame - Dome Yearbook (Notre Dame, IN)

Page 33 text:

demonstrate in the streets. The American working class is generally well integrated into the Establishment and is almost hostile to you. If the protest is not viewed in the context of society at large, it is ineffective; and you cannot consistently dissent with society without the sup- port of those who in society are the effectual productive forces. But the workers are distant from you. In Europe students give them the ideological basis for their protest; over here you give them a justification for their backlash. The only class in American society which could benefit from your being the new intelligentsia are the Negroes, but they don ' t want you. They want their own leaders, and they have to be Black. . . . I realize your difficulties and I am sympathetic with the situation that many of you find yourselves in search- ing for dissent against this world ' grown old ' . But I am not sympathetic at all with your spirit of improvisation, your lack of culture, and your intolerance. Betty Doerr: The demonstration seemed to be a success. At the concluding Mass, the remaining students sang ' We have overcome, ' rather than ' We Shall Over- come. ' But in terms of their original purpose, political action, the demonstrators were not successful. The only success was one involving personal confrontation. The demonstrators had confronted the administration and the CIA. But the students had also confronted them- selves and that confrontation was very real. In a sense, the demonstrators had fulfilled Prefect of Students Richie ' s definition of a student. They had acquired a basis for practical action in the future. Demonstratio n II: elections and the War in Viet Nam. Theodore M. Hesburgh: My own reaction to the demonstration is this: students have a right to protest, according to the ground rules established in the Student Manual by a Faculty-Student-Administration Committee last spring. All of these rules were observed until Wedneday morning when a number of students did everything possible to create a confrontation. In doing this, I believe they used their freedom of action to ob- struct the freedom of others and impose their own per- sonal convictions on others. In a free society like the University, this is complete- ly out of order, whatever the sincerity of their motives, which I concede. Most universities have already stated clearly that while peaceful protest is legitimate, protest that infringes on the rights of other members of the community or obstructs the normal functions of the University is cause for separating from the community those who indulge in such action. The first duty of the whole University com- munity, as an open society, is to preserve its own right to be and do that which it needs to be and do to be itself. Freedom cuts both ways. 29

Page 32 text:

.-. . ' JcZ Top, left, a night scene during the CIA-Dow Protest. Top, right, the protest during the day of the Presidential Election. Above, another scene during the Presidential Election. 28

Page 34 text:

Above, Professor James T. Gushing of the Physics Department talks to the students during the protest. Below, students pass the night away by playing chess. Fr. Hesburgh ' s hard-line reaction. Mary B. Kennedy: The debate which arose in the administration building yesterday over the motives and tactics of the demonstration, in my opinion, all but ignored one important aspect of the issue: the C. I. A. (I am not talking here about Dow Chemical) is an organ of the oppression of underdeveloped nations by the United States. Further, it is an organ of oppression which I and each of the demonstrators is forced to pay for. Its actions in Santo Domingo and Bolivia in support of blatantly oppressive dictatorships are disgusting. As far as I am concerned the right of the C. I. A. and students to meet for job interviews is irrelevant. I do not recognize any right to oppress. And asking for job interviews is cooperating with and implicitly condoning oppression. I will interfere with the workings of the C. I. A. anywhere, in any context in which I can, and I will be proud to do it. A faculty statement, drafted by Robert Turley and Peter Michelson, signed by more than twenty members of the faculty: The recent demonstrations against Dow Chemical Company and the C. I. A. were carried out to the end of confronting the entire university community with the question of whether on-campus recruitment by such agencies is advisable at this university, one of the fundamental purposes of which is to inculcate and nourish both the moral and investigative sensibilities of its students and faculty. Thirteen weeks later, in the face of another protest against Dow Chemical, President Hesburgh made his hard line announcement of expulsion for students who do not cease and desist the substitution of force for rational persuasion, be it violent or non-violent. Hesburgh ' s statement was immediately successful: it became the following morning ' s quotation of the day in the New York Times.