The enactment of the University Operations Temporary Measures Act of 1969?

This article, which deals with legislative measures taken to deal with the widespread disputes and unrest that broke out on Japan’s university campuses between students, faculty and educational authorities over wide-ranging issues of administration, research activities and course curricula, begins with an analysis of the response to that situation by the Japanese government and Liberal Democratic Party up through 1968, when on 30 November of that year Prime Minister Sato Eisaku reshuffled his cabinet, appointing as Minister of Education Sakata Michita, the LDP’s expert on education policy who had been campaigning for educational reform, and placing Minister of Construction Hori Shigeru in the post of Chief Cabinet Scecretary. <br>　 Next the author covers the movements of the LDP during 1969 in the midst of the escalation of student protests at the University of Tokyo and the death of a police officer in clashes occuring on the campus of Okayama University, describing the Party’s understanding of the unrest as stemming from opposition to the newly revised Japan-US Security Treaty and its demands for the government to adopt hardline measures in response. <br> The author then turns to the drafting of the temporary measures legislation, which was conducted by Hori and the Ministry of Education. Although Hori, who thought it crucial to quell the unrest by quickly implementing the Okinawa Reversion, concurred with the Education Ministry that legislative measures should be kept to a minimum, the lack of time in drafting the bill resulted in inconsistencies which had to be corrected by the Cabinet Legislative Bureau, which also removed all of the bill’s emergency law enforcement provisions. <br> Finally, the author discusses the deliberations in the National Diet, in the process of which the hardliner demands of the LDP were removed from discussion, sparking strong Party criticism of the government’s proposed bill. In order to appease the disgruntled LDP, student disciplinary measures were written in, but due to a strong counterattack from the opposition parties, insufficient time for deliberation resulted in the exclusion of the proposed amendments. When deliberations shifted to the House of Councillors, House Chairman Shigemune Yuzo’s hesitance towards ramming the bill through was assuaged by PM Sato requesting fixer and older brother, former PM Kishi Nobusuke, to intervene, resulting in the forced passage of the bill. <br>The author concludes that the drastic changes that took place in the original draft of the bill were due mainly to sharp differences of opinion between the government and the LDP over educational and foreign relations policy; and it was for this reason that Chief Cabinet Secretary Hori was given the lead role in determining the government’s response to the disputes and unrest on the country’s university campuses.