Over the past six months, there have been countless instances of the wanton destruction of public facilities. But the worst must surely have been the recent trashing and vandalism of at least six publicly funded universities, three of which – the Polytechnic, City and Chinese universities – will require tens of millions and many months to repair. There has been no serious criticism of the damages inflicted on our higher education campuses, only the usual knee-jerk denunciations of the government and police as aggressors. Pan-democratic education sector lawmaker Ip Kin-yuen said the government should pay for repairs because it was “the culprit of protests over the past few months”. The government will surely pay, because university administrators are already warning their coffers are running dry. But Mr Ip, the rioters trashed the universities, not taxpayers. Ip and leaders of university student unions have a habit of warning against imaginary or even the slightest threats to academic freedom and university institutional autonomy at the drop of a hat. Trashed university in Hong Kong ‘will take more than six months to repair’ Yet, when our universities are being trashed physically and their campuses turned into waste yards, there is not a word of concern or criticism from those noble defenders of academic freedom. In truth, the offices of some professors and lecturers were destroyed, usually those from the mainland. And hundreds of mainland students had to be evacuated back across the border for fear of being attacked by rioters. There is perhaps political symbolism in occupying public universities and colleges. But wantonly destroying their facilities and trashing their campuses? Can there possibly be more senseless destruction of places than universities for the higher education of young people? I am ready to believe most of the riotous occupiers of the universities over the past month were outsiders. According to police figures, only 46 out of more than 1,100 people arrested during the 13-day police siege of the PolyU campus were registered students. Chinese University’s student union tried to distance itself from the more outrageous actions of rioters by issuing press statements. But there is no denying those student leaders have been at the forefront of the six-month-long protests. Now they are refusing to condemn the destruction of valuable campus facilities and the theft of dangerous chemicals. Whatever you think about the government and police, those campus rioters are neither heroes nor victims. Their enablers and cheerleaders are complicit in their crimes.