Violent Student Protests in Greece Prompt Questions About Campus Asylum Law

In the wake of a wave of violent demonstrations at universities across Greece and the serious injuries suffered by the rector of the University of Athens, who was beaten in his office by assailants, academics are increasingly questioning a law that bars the police from entering university campuses, the International Herald Tribune reported. The university asylum law has its origins in an infamous attack on protesting students at the Athens Polytechnic by the military dictatorship that ruled Greece in the 1970s, but a growing number of professors feel that the law is “being exploited by extremists to suppress the views of others,” the newspaper reported.