The conservative opponents of the resolution agreed that the Berkeley students had had legitimate grievances. They based their case on the contention that the means the Free Speech Movement employed were completely unrelated to those grievancces.
Evidently the delegates did not agree. They passed the Berkeley resolution by a vote of 274 to 19.
Though the congress was the most liberal one ever, the far left was noticeable by its absence. Leaders such as Clark Kissenger of Students for a Democratic Society and Robert Parris of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee put in only the briefest of appearances.
The far left has increasingly shifted its emphasis away from university life and toward direct community action. As Ed Schwartz put it, "The left thinks of NSA as the Urban League of student organizations."
Spectrum Shifts
According to some observers, what has happened is that thanks to Berkeley, the civil rights movement and five years of a liberal national administration, the whole student political spectrum has shifted to the left.
At last year's congress the biggest fight came on whether NSA should refrain from taking any stands at all