The State - News from Sept. 13, 1987

A famed history professor exhorted Berkeley students to mark the anniversary of the Constitution by continuing the tradition of dissent that has placed them among American activists from Abolitionists to scientists who refuse to work on the “Star Wars” defense system. “History teaches us that it is not the rebels or dissenters who endanger society but rather the unthinking, the unquestioning, the obedient, the silent and the indifferent,” said Pulitzer Prize-winning Prof. Leon Litwack, Morrison Professor of History at UC Berkeley. Litwack said the same Constitution that reinforced the enslavement of blacks and disenfranchised women also allows dissenters to undo injustices.