The Anti-University of London emerged in 1968 as »a reactionary attempt to return to the human values of commune, friendship, contact - in the sense of people connecting and feeling each other out« (Joseph Berke). It was to completely change the relationship between teachers and students: students had greater opportunities for control and actively participated. Public discussions and equal learning were integral parts. The Anti-University was largely founded by left wing activists and leaders of the British »underground« movement. Students could move freely within a variety of diverse topics. The response was overwhelming: even before it opened, over 3,000 enquiries had been received and well over 200 students had enrolled. The fees, about eighty marks for registration and six marks per course, served two purposes: to cover general overhead and to discourage those with no real interest. If students had no money, they could also pay in kind or in the form of work. Poets, painters, sculptors, publishers, writers, psychoanalysts, sociologists and historians gathered at the university. The anti-university got its name because royal approval was required to call an institution a »university«. There were no academic degrees or scholarships. Students could come and go as they pleased. Course lengths varied from eight weeks to eight months. Times for lectures were between 18:30 and 22:30 every day except Saturdays.

Response to the general intellectual bankruptcy and spiritual emptiness of the education establishment in England and the rest of the Western world. Changing the relationship between teachers and learners.

Revolutionary courses, e.g. Narcotics by Steve Abrams. Allen Krebs spoke on sociology and the world revolution, discussing the ideas of Marx, Mao, Fanon, Trotsky and Lenin. Joseph Berke dealt with anti-institutions and the stagnation of the Western world. Dr David Cooper, one of the main organisers, lectured on political psychiatry. Allen Krebs, Dr David Cooper and Joseph Berke already founded its predecessor, the Free University of New York (FUNY), in 1965, and there are now over a dozen similar institutions in the United States. Antiuniversity Now has existed since 2015 as a revival of the AU of 1968. Among other things, they criticised existing hierarchies as well as issues such as tuition fees within academic institutions. Antiuniversity Now wants teaching events to emerge in the public sphere and be organised across the country.

Left wing activists and leaders of the British »underground« movement