Savio Quits Free Speech Movement

Apr. 26, 1965 - Mario Savio quit today as leader of the Free Speech Movement at the University of California at Berkeley. 

“Goodbye and good luck,” the 22-year-old former philosophy student told an audience of 1,000 at a noon rally.

He said he was leaving the movement because he “could not keep up with the undemocratic procedures the university is following.”

He cited a recent Board of Regents committee report proposing more stringent rules governing student conduct. He called the report a “document of obscenity” and “far worse than any four-letter word.”

One student was expelled and three suspended last week for using a four-letter obscenity in public on the campus during a “free speech” demonstration.

Savio also said the student protests were in danger of becoming undemocratic with himself as a Napoleon Bonaparte.

Speculation arose, however, that Savio’s decision to quit may have been influenced by his draft status. He passed his preinduction tests at the Armed Forces recruitment center in Oakland last month and faces the possibility of being drafted soon into the Army.

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