OXFORD, MISS.--Bullet holes still mar the tall Ionic columns in front of the Lyceum building at Ole Miss. The six white pillars have been repainted since the 1962 riot, but many of the scars are still plainly visible.

The riot, which broke out when Negro James Meredith enrolled in previously segregated Ole Miss, shook the college to its foundations. Mississippians suddenly had to get used to the idea of integration at the "white folks school." national attention forced the University out of its comfortable regionalism. Political issues became paramount: white Mississippians had to choose between moderation and a last-ditch defense of the state's traditions.

Now, however, there are signs that Ole Miss is sliding back into its old pose of quiet case. The last class that went through the Meredith experience graduated in June; already the new students have begun to re-focus on sorority-fraternity politics and the Mississippi football game. The state-pointed Board of Trustees, which has been surprisingly tolerant during the last four years, is once again making noises about clearing the "radicals" out of Ole Miss. And the liberals on the college faculty, who have fought a constant series of battles for academic freedom since the Meredith year, are tiring.

For a year after the riot, as long James Meredith was still at the University, U.S. troops remained on campus. The sight of federal troops at Ole Miss was almost as galling to white Mississippians as the presence of Meredith, for the University of Mississippi is very much the pride of the state, in everything from its football team to its law school. There are two larger schools in the state, Mississippi State and Mississippi Southern, but Ole Miss is Mississippi. The state's brightest students have always gone to Ole Miss; its political leaders, both good and bad, have always begun their rise to power at the Ole Miss Law School.

Professors Leave

In the first two years after Meredith, 58 professors left the university; most were either pressured into leaving or wanted to teach in a less volatile atmosphere. Several departments were badly weakened, and the History department was decimated.

Among those who left was James Silver, chairman of the History department and author of Mississippi: The Closed Society, an account of Mississippi's well-oiled system for stifling dissent. Although Silver was not actually fired, Governor Ross Barnett and the Board of Trustees were openly hostile to him. After the departure of Silver and some other faculty liberals, Ole Miss Chancellor J.D. Williams commented, "It's best that they go--it is best for them, it is best for us."

Meredith's year on the campus not only affected the faculty, but it shocked the students into a new view of themselves and of their University. The riot gave many of them a nation-wide perspective rare in the South.

During and after the riot, almost everyone at Ole Miss had some contact with the national press, which swarmed over the campus. Many students were recruited for on-the-spot television and radio interviews, which were subsequently edited beyond recognition to perpetuate the national image of the Mississippi anarchist-bigot. Photographers sought out the most hot-headed rednecks on campus and egged them into spouting vicious diatribes and posing for indicting pictures. National television carried shots of one student pulling down the American flag and running the Confederate flag up the University flagpole in its place. According to several who saw the whole incident, the scene was staged by a photographer who cajoled a student in committing the act.

Changes in race relations on campus have been striking. For two years after the riot, racists regularly harrassed both Negro students and those few whites, students or faculty members, who dared to associate with the Negroes. But the past two years have been marred by only a few ugly incidents.

The number of Negroes on campus has increased quietly, but steadily. There are now about 40, and, on the whole, they are left to themselves. Yet is clear that desegregation at the University has been accepted now. Whites who associate with the Negroes are no longer harrassed, though they may be ostracized by other white students. Racially mixed groups come into the cafeteria without being hissed, and Negroes use the student union grill without being particularly noticed. Meredith often ate at the cafeteria, but never ventured into the grill, a more informal "hangout" for a number of the close-knit cliques on campus.

Mixing Roommates

This year, the University assigned Negro and white students together as roommates. Students are given the opportunity to change roommates after the school year begins, and all of the mixed groups elected to split up. Nonetheless, it is clear that the University has adopted a policy of color-blindness, at least with respect to housing.

The one integrated campus organization, the Young Democrats, is generally considered the University's most radical. Aligned with the national Democratic Party rather than with the state's dixiecrats, the YD's have invited such controversial speakers to Ole Miss as Richmond Flowers of Alabama, and Robert Kennedy.

The President of the Young Dems is a 29-year-old ex-marine, a third-year law student named Don Allen. Allen, born in Florida, has come under attack for his "radical" politics and for his out-of-state background. A warm, straightforward person, he makes no effort to conceal his views. Although he would be classified as a middle-of-the-roader in national politics, Don Allen is definitely on the political left at Ole Miss.