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theorist, has ever accepted the notion that it is up to the individual
simply to accept those laws he likes and use his dislike of laws or his
claim that they are unjust as sufficient grounds for not obeying them
without paying some price.
The price, it seems to me, must be some constraint somewhere,
whether it is expulsion or something milder like suspension or proba–
tion or whatever else it might be. Now this doesn't mean that one
necessarily needs to be vindictive with students, and here is still an–
other complexity which I would ,like to suggest. During the course
of this crisis, I discovered something that I'm sure a lot of other
people did: namely, that the behavior of individuals was completely
different from the behavior of groups. When I talked to individual
students - and some of my students were very deeply involved in
this - I might discover that we could not agree. In fact, our disagree–
ments might be quite strong. But a kind of human relationship was
reestablished that would be severed by manifestos signed by a number
of faculty members or by students. In other words, I must confess that
in this case I feel much more inclined towards leniency when I talk
to individuals than I .do when I see them as groups.
INTERVIEWER:
How do you feel about the use of police on the University
campus? Do you think it could have been avoided?
GAY:
The second part of your question is of course pure conjecture.
Let me offer you my conjecture. It seems to me that the use of the
police in both instances was more or less unavoidable. But I would
go on to say that the second time that the police were used [during
the reoccupation of Hamilton Hall] at least adequate notice was given
to the students in Hamilton as to what they were facing, when the
police might be coming in and so on.
It
was of course perfectly clear
during the first occupation (which lasted, you remember, nearly a
week) that the police would come in at one point or another. Still,
I think it would have been preferable if the Administration had in
some way informed the faculty about what it really planned to do.
My own sense of the matter from the beginning was that it would
have been very valuable if the Administration, busy as it was - and
they were in fact intensely busy and working - had been more visible.
And they could have been more visible if they had called some long
faculty meetings towards the end of the week and had no):ified us and
discussed with us the inevitable calling-in of the police if the buildings
were not cleared. I think this would have permitted the faculty to
continue to negotiate if they wanted to, perhaps desperately to the
last moment, but would also have given a sense of - if not public
approval at least public knowledge of what was going to happen.
That would be my first point.
My second point would be that the best evidence we have suggests
that the best judgment here would have to be a complicated one. For '
example, both the first liberation of Hamilton Hall (and I use "libera–
tion" in its ordinary sense) and the second took place with a complete
absence of violence. This shows that it can be done. But one would
have to add that after Hamilton was cleared each time, other things
were done that seemed, to put it mildly, quite unnecessary.
The police obviously did not behave themselves very well, plain-
