An analysis of the crisis of legitimacy on American campuses in terms of the inherent dilemmas of organizational control. The author traces the origins of traditional student government and administrative paternalism. He shows that, despite the willingness of most students in former years to be co-opted into a more or less unified system of control, activist students never regarded the structure as legitimate. The author contends that the crisis of university authority is just one manifestation of a deeper rebellion against the dominant organizational trend in modern society, a trend toward greater administrative centralization based upon planning and rational coordination.