The Polish students who by acts of violence drive fellow-students out of the Universities and prevent them enjoying the facilities of the Universities to which they have been formally admitted, are themselves destroying the principle of academic liberty invoked by them in defence of the principle of autonomy of the Universities which it is rumoured the Government intends to abolish, the Minister of Education, M. Jedrzejewicz, declared to-day in Parliament, when he addressed the Budget Commission.
It is not true that the Government intends abolishing the autonomy of the Universities, the Minister went on, but if students go about the streets armed with cudgels and create disturbances, it is absurd for them afterwards to adopt resolutions demanding the maintenance of academic liberty and University autonomy.
The antisemitic disturbances are a result of the unthinking way in which the students allow themselves to be used ### certain political parties for their own ends, the Minister said. The antisemitic agitation in the Universities has demonstrated, he added, that the professors are incapable of maintaining order in the Universities, and consequently it is the students and the professors themselves who have made it imperative for the Government to step in and reform the regulations with regard to the Universities.
In political circles the Minister’s speech is interpreted as a hint that the new University Statute which has just been drafted by the Government while not abolishing the principle of University autonomy, will, however, contain provisions empowering the authorities when necessary to enter University territory to ensure the maintenance of order.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
