Education: Flight of the Intelligentsia

"Universities are a part of the workers' and peasants' state and must serve the construction of socialism." In these blunt terms, the East German government defines the functions of the nation's "institutions of higher education." In practice, the definition means that East German universities bar the "nonproductive" (i.e., politically suspect), bourgeois "intelligent sia" in favor of the loyal sons and daughters of the "peasants' and workers' class."

Last week, prodded by public protests from professional groups, East German officialdom took a new look at its educational policy. One of the policy's embarrassing results: East German students by the hundreds are slipping into...