CLOUDS OVER CALIFORNIA

When Harvard last June presented Dr. Robert Gordon Sproul with an honorary degree, the President of the University of California was heralded as a distinguished educator. Just what distinguishes an educator is being demonstrated these days out on the coast.

Under the sponsorship of a group of student organizations, including the Daily Californian editors, a meeting was recently called to discuss the draft--discussion being still, presumably, one of the rights of citizens of this democracy. Promptly came forth a sharp statement from the office of President Sproul, warning that students who opposed "defending this country" might find themselves deprived of the chance to be "educated by this country."

Latest advices from the coast are that the students, and the campus paper, intend not to back down in their proposed insistence on freedom of campus activities. What will happen--that is, what President Sproul will decide to do--is not clear. But undergraduate eyes throughout the nation are turning California-ward, as they were turned toward Michigan last year, and as they continually turn when student freedom is challenged in one college or another.

Without making any conclusions as to the desirability or unsavoriness of the draft act, most college students will join with California's in asserting their right to free discussion of national legislation. At least until this country is at war, such freedom cannot reasonably be held to constitute "clear and present danger" to the United States. Equally certain, suppression of discussion is "clear and present danger" to democracy and free education.