Dean Griswold, Four Professors Attack N.Y.C. Banning of 'Nation'

The ban on The Nation, liberal weekly magazine, in New York City's public schools has drawn fire from five University professors and officials.

Joining 102 other prominent Americans the five signed a statement urging lifting of the ban and establishment of a national educational policy to prevent the "suppression" of ideas.

The five signers were Professors Zechariah Chafee; William Ernest Hocking, Howard Mumford Jones, Perry Miller, and Law School Dean Erwin Griswold.

Criticized Church

The Nation was banned by the New York Board of Superintendent after a series of articles by Paul Blanshard criticizing the positions of the Roman Catholic Church on several matters.

In its signed statement, the group declared that the "proposition than any publication objectionable on grounds of faith to any group in the community should be suppressed in the schools, though . . . plausible on its face, is . . . vicious in fact . . .

"To give the churches of the country, or any of their members who might seek to exercise it, the power to determine by simple veto what shall not be available to students in the public schools, or, worse, for public officials to exclude automatically anything any group might be expected to wish excluded, is to do by negative action what the Constitution and the Courts forbid by positive action."