Students Under Fire

BLACKS in the ghetto might not be an avowed target of "law and order," but activist students certainly are. Before Republican leaders told Spiro Agnew last month that it would be prudent for him to drop his Joe McCarthy image, his favorite campaign line was about the "definite link" between Communists and student demonstrations.

Although Agnew does not refer to "Marxists" on campus anymore, he still assures crowds that a Nixon administration will put down by force even the mildest forms of civil disobedience. Predictably, the head of the GOP's ticket uses a softer approach to win applause at rallies. "Remember, I believe in our young people," Richard Nixon says. "They're great. Give 'em a chance." But Nixon accepts Agnew's remarks about protests, and the clear warning in his remarks is that any students who disappoint him by disrupting a university deserve to be punished.

This hard-line approach to student demonstrations reflects the overwhelming sentiment of Republicans in Congress. Last May the House was shocked when it seemed possible that Columbia might show some leniency to students revolting against the distant and authoritarian administration. A Republican legislator, Louis C. Wyman of New Hampshire, moved to deny federal scholarships, loans, or other aid to any students who participated in a campus protest. Only a few Northern Democrats opposed him.

Later in the summer the House Education and Labor Committee tried to weaken Wyman's automatic ban by letting colleges deny aid funds to students at their own discretion. Another Republican, William J. Scherle of Iowa, fought on the House floor to restore the mandatory cutoff. Again a coalition of Republicans and Southern Democrats prevailed.

Administration officials and liberal Congressmen called the punitive restriction unfair, unconstitutional, and unwarranted meddling. It was also unnecessary, they argued, because a disruptive student would probably be suspended or expelled and so lose his aid anyway. But the House disagreed. It was passing the ban precisely because it felt that university officials lacked the "intestinal fortitude" to act against demonstrators.

Congressional anger at students was so strong that a Senate-House conference was afraid to remove the ban completely. The relatively liberal conferees softened it to allow universities to act as they wish, but the cutoff provision still stands as an expression of the strong feeling in Congress.

THE AID ban shows clearly that Congress feels it has a voice in campus discipline and that it wants university officials to deal harshly with protestors. Colleges which seem to be "coddling" their demonstrating students will probably face serious reprisals, especially if a President Nixon is blessed with a Republican House. Reactionaries in the Senate have already demonstrated their capacity to strike back at uncooperative administrators: any college which refuses to allow military recruiters on campus will be denied NASA research grants, as a result of a Republican-sponsored amendment to an appropriation bill this summer.

Aside from Congressional resentment, official Republican policy could also pose a fundamental threat to needy students. Rep. Gerald Ford of Michigan, who would be Speaker of a Republican House, sees the tax credit plan which passed the Senate last year as the final solution to student aid problems. The plan also received prominent mention in the GOP platform.

Ford's proposal would allow anyone who pays tuition for a college student to claim a credit on his income tax. But the maximum allowance of $325 would not help any student's family very much, and poorer families with a small tax payment would receive almost no benefit. "Tax credit" is a difficult phrase to resist, though, and only sustained opposition from the Johnson Administration killed it in the House last year.

If Republicans have their way, the tax credit would supersede the current network of federal grants and loans to students. The credit plan would have a special appeal if campus disruptions continue because the benefit would go directly to parents, who are also the taxpayers and voters, rather than to students or college financial aid offices.

In the present crisis of soaring costs and limited resources for higher education, only the federal government can supply the funds which colleges and students need. Lyndon Johnson and his Administration have recognized the problem, but his war budgets have not been able to provide the assistance he admits is necessary; this summer the Carnegie Commission on Higher Education reported that federal aid to colleges and students should be at least double its present level. President Johnson has appointed a study group to develop plans for a comprehensive government aid program, but its future depends on the attitude of the next Administration.

The Republican posture towards discontented students and Gerald Ford's enthusiasm for a political gimmick to solve student aid problems seem to indicate that a Republican government would not share the Democratic Administration's desire to maintain an independent educational system open to students from middle and lower income families. In education, at least, it's hard to believe Nixon's the one.