Editorial: No excuse

The Council of State ruling is clear: the establishment of a University Police force “does not violate the principles of academic freedom and the complete administrative autonomy of universities, nor does it endanger “other individual freedoms (trade unionist, the development of personality, personal movement or installation)”.

The government, therefore, no longer has any excuse for not proceeding with the implementation of one of its most emblematic pre-electoral pledges.

Naturally, no one believes that this measure alone can deal with incidents of lawlessness at universities (unarmed guards cannot confront determined hooligans armed with sledgehammers), nor that “education is changing” after the Council of State delivered its ruling, as the education minister remarked yesterday.

The policing of universities is an unpleasant and complex but necessary measure in order to protect fundamental rights of citizens, such as learning, dialogue, the borrowing of books, research, and the dissemination of ideas.

The humiliation of rectors, brutalising professors, intimidating students, or ad infinitum occupations of spaces at universities trample over those rights and can no longer be tolerated.

The ruling of the Council of State should not be occasion for a new round of skirmishes between parties. It should spur the cooperation of all forces that seek the good of the country, and first of all of our youth, so that the implementation of this reform can proceed in the most effective and democratic manner.

There is no more room for delays.