In theory, it cannot corrupt the repository, as Subversion uses atomic commits (bugs in Subversion notwithstanding).
However, ignoring access control, clients can of course move/copy/delete the contents of the repository in new revisions. Old revisions continue to exist. You can, in theory, always recover to these old revisions, either with judicious use of svn commands or by the administrator removing later revisions.
In general, it's pretty safe, but do look at access control: http://svnbook.red-bean.com/en/1.5/svn-book.html#svn.serverconfig.httpd.authz
Note: as Greg has intimated, it's slightly more complex when using a local repository as the client has direct filesystem access to the repository. Essentially, you have to trust Subversion.