By Joyce @Adobe Stock
Standing against Mob Rule
“We’re now well past the point where these protesters, student and non-student alike, think the rules or campus regulations don’t apply to them,” writes Jim Geraghty in NRO. “They believe criminal law doesn’t apply to them.” (April 2024)
Notable & Quotable (From The WSJ)
Father Ted Hesburgh (1917-2015), former president of the University of Notre Dame, wrote a letter to the university community, (17 February 1969). Here is the condensed version:
Dear Notre Dame Faculty and Students,
I believe that I now have a clear mandate from this University community to see that:
- Our lines of communication between all segments of the community are kept as open as possible, with all legitimate means of communicating dissent assured, expanded, and protected.
- Civility and rationality are maintained.
- Violation of another’s rights or obstruction of the life of the University are outlawed as illegitimate means of dissent in this kind of open society.
Now comes my duty of stating, clearly and unequivocally, what happens if. . . . Anyone or any group that substitutes force for rational persuasion, be it violent or non-violent, will be given fifteen minutes of meditation to cease and desist. . . . If they do not within that time period cease and desist, they will be asked for their identity cards. Those who produce these will be suspended from this community as not understanding what this community is. Those who do not have or will not produce identity cards will be assumed not to be members of the community and will be charged with trespassing and disturbing the peace on private property and treated accordingly by the law.
After notification of suspension, or trespass in the case of non-community members, if there is not within five minutes a movement to cease and desist, students will be notified of expulsion from this community and the law will deal with them as non-students.
There seems to be a current myth that university members are not responsible to the law, and that somehow the law is the enemy, particularly those whom society has constituted to uphold and enforce the law. I would like to insist here that all of us are responsible to the duly constituted laws of this University community and to all the laws of the land. There is no other guarantee of civilization versus the jungle or mob rule, here or elsewhere.
