Bennett Says Radicals Use Campuses as ‘Fortress’

Radicals view universities as “a kind of fortress at war with society,” and a “significant body of opinion” rejects the democratic ethic on campuses, Education Secretary William J. Bennett said Thursday.

Such radicals see campuses as “an arsenal whose principal task is to raise ‘revolutionary consciousness,’ frustrate the government, discredit authority and promote a radical transformation of society.”

In remarks that were immediately disputed by college officials across the country, Bennett cited two 1983 incidents as evidence of how “a fortress under siege does not invite enemy spokesmen to address the troops.” In those cases, former U.N. Ambassador Jeane J. Kirkpatrick and Defense Secretary Caspar W. Weinberger were severely heckled during speeches.

Forced to Cancel Speech

Kirkpatrick, in a February appearance at UC Berkeley, was shouted down one day and forced to cancel a second speech the next, amid protests over the Reagan Administration’s Central American policies. In November, 1983, students at Harvard denounced Weinberger for the Administration’s defense policies.

“I don’t wish to sound like an alarmist,” Bennett said in a speech to the 80th anniversary meeting of the American Jewish Committee, “but it seems to me that, when an institution as crucial as the university allows itself to be intimidated into discarding . . . freedom of speech, we do have grounds for concern.”

Calls It ‘Old Stuff’

But Robert M. Rosenzweig, president of the Assn. of American Universities, called the 1983 disruptions of speeches “old stuff,” adding: “To represent that as the reality on American campuses or as a growing political trend seems to me just plain wrong.”

Ira Michael Heyman, chancellor of UC Berkeley, said campus radicalism is “not a problem of awesome proportions.” Heyman, likening campus unruliness to plane crashes in its infrequency, said: “A lot of planes are landing safely.”

Views Called ‘Outdated’

John W. Chandler, president of the Assn. of American Colleges--who once taught Bennett a religion course at Williams College, of which Chandler was formerly president--said the secretary’s views “simply sound outdated.”

Several officials mentioned the numerous demonstrations over divestiture of university investments in South Africa as the primary protest on campuses, and Rosenzweig called them part of a “mainstream movement now.”

Bennett’s speech about values focused on what he called the three central elements of “American common culture”: the democratic ethic, the work ethic and the Judeo-Christian ethic. He said the “common culture” is “in danger of not being adequately transmitted in the schools,” a situation that began in the 1960s.

The problem has been on the wane ever since, according to several education officials.