Last Friday, a small group of trouble-makers, supported by a somewhat larger group of sympathizers, decided to use illegal physical force to impose its agenda upon the entire campus.

I'm not going to convince any of the individuals who engaged in unlawful and immoral acts that they were in the wrong. Nor will I convince those who gathered to support them. Instead, I call upon the sane individuals on this campus--the individuals who have come here for a world-class education, not for a chance to stage a farcical reenactment of the 1960s--to demand justice from your administrators.

Chancellor Birgeneau's response struck me as particularly Canadian (no offense intended to Canadians--I once dated a lady from the True North.) I remember Canadian troops in Afghanistan scored a major victory, driving the Taliban from its positions, destroying its command posts, and killing or capturing almost 300 enemy combatants. It was truly a proud day for a country whose military, all jokes aside, has a history of honorable service in the cause of freedom. Yet, the headline in a major Canadian newspaper was something to the effect of "4 Canadians Killed in Afghan Battle."

In similar fashion, the chancellor missed the point in his email to the campus Monday. He devotes precisely one sentence to acknowledging that the administration has a duty to ensure academic instruction proceeds unmolested. He devotes four full, hefty paragraphs responding to allegations of police brutality.

These charges do not merit a response. The right to peaceably assemble entails a responsibility to follow the instructions of legitimate authority meant to preserve public safety. It is inevitable that a few injuries result when protesters abjure that responsibility, as happened throughout that day. Chancellor Birgeneau reveals his prejudice when he writes, "we expect that, as a result of this review, modifications (in tactics to exercise crowd control) will be made." Before any review has been conducted, the police have already been adjudged guilty in the Court of St. Bobby.

This, however, was merely the last vertebrae that disappeared from the spine of the Doctor. UCPD learned of the "occupation" of Wheeler Hall before 6 a.m. Classes are supposed to start at 8 a.m. The criminals inside had chained the doors shut and activated internal fire doors. What occurred exactly in the early morning hours is still not clear, but all signs point to a failure of leadership by the campus administration.

UCPD is presumably trained to deal with an "active shooter" situation and a myriad of other ones--to say that they would not have been capable of clearing roughly forty unarmed criminals from a building in two hours is both disturbing and strains credulity. The likely alternative is that the chancellor was fearful of displaying even minimal force against the occupiers and preferred to have a negotiated solution.

This was misguided from the beginning. Criminal acts are not appropriate methods of attracting attention to one's cause in a free society-when a minority believes it can intimidate everybody else into accepting its demands, the road to dictatorship is cleared. Failing to treat criminality as anything but merely encourages further disruptions to law and order. If the administration had shown it meant business, it is likely that individuals would have felt less comfortable falsely activating fire alarms throughout campus.

But disorder breeds disorder. The campus became a circus, a war zone for a day. How can you not expect injuries when a rowdy crowd and a large number of armed men literally face off for an entire day? This could have been avoided had the police been instructed to take appropriate action to arrest the occupiers of Wheeler in the wee hours of the morning and thus avoided having to set up a cordon around the building.

Instead, thousands of students (a number greater than the 3,800 claimed by Dr. Birgeneau due to classes elsewhere canceled due to false alarms) were deprived of the education they have paid for, others were unable to use the libraries that had to close and others were physically blocked from passing on a public campus thoroughfare by picketers. Dan Mogulof, the administration spokesperson, said it is unlikely anyone will face campus disciplinary action such as suspension or expulsion.

Both state law and campus regulations forbid physical disruption of buildings for a reason. These rules exist to protect education, the fundamental purpose of this university. Assembling peaceably to express your grievances is a right earned by the blood of patriots, but the moment one begins to infringe upon the rights of others to go about their business, the assembly stops being peaceful.

I call upon the administration to enforce the campus regulations to their maximum extent. If the administration treats the occupiers and others caught involved with the disruptions of the day with kid gloves, what is to prevent the events of the day from reoccurring? How many more hours of academic instruction must be missed until we put our collective foot down? What does it say about the administration's commitment to the teaching mission of the university if people who illegally disrupt it are given a mere slap on the wrist? Should students take campus rules seriously only when they don't have a crowd to support them?

Countless students want nothing more than orderly functioning of the university they so love. The administration ought to do its most basic job and provide that. Anything less is a betrayal of our trust.