Rectorate of the University of Lisbon

Marcelo Caetano, a leading figure of the Estado Novo (“New State”) and a former Minister for the Colonies and Minister of the Presidency, became rector of the University of Lisbon on 20 January 1959.³ In the spring of 1962, the government banned the Students’ Day celebrations and the riot police charged the students at the University Stadium and in Campo Grande.² The rector was greeted with applause by the students gathered at the Stadium and, later, from the balcony of the Rectorate, he spoke to them and reaffirmed that the university’s autonomy had to be respected. As an alternative to the banned celebrations, he invited them to a dinner at the Castanheira de Moura restaurant, in Lumiar — and did not turn up.¹

On 26 March, the student associations of Lisbon and Coimbra declared “luto académico” (academic mourning), a strike from classes. The government backed down and agreed that Students’ Day could be celebrated on 7 and 8 April, but on 5 April it banned it again. That day, feeling his authority undermined, Marcelo Caetano tendered his resignation, and the mourning strike resumed.²¹ The university says that he resigned because he felt his authority had been undermined by the police response, and gives 12 April as the end of his term.³

During the three months of mourning, the open ground in front of the Rectorate was the scene of countless student gatherings.⁴ The open-air plenary meetings — here, in front of the faculties and in the University Stadium, in the Cidade Universitária — were something new in a gagged society, where public debate was rare: the student association leaders spoke directly to thousands of students and put decisions about the resistance to the vote.²

Six years later, in September 1968, the former rector was sworn in as President of the Council (head of government), in place of Salazar.⁵