No Time for Restriction

This is a particularly inappropriate time for educators in this country to decide that there are political limits to academic freedom. At Princeton and Columbia, they have recently made that sort of decision.

Princeton decided to dismiss an assistant professor who had been indicted for contempt of Congress; Columbia not only denied permission to speak to Howard Fast, a left-wing author, but also refused to renew the charter of the college's chapter of the Labor Youth League. Princeton would offer no reason for its action; Columbia banned Fast because he was "not objective," and denied the Youth League a charter "because of its affiliation with subversive parent organization."

The assistant provost of Columbia explained his action further by saying that "a lot of things have happened in the past few years in the ideological scene." He is very close to the truth, but the main change, as far as this country is concerned, is in the treatment, rather than the content of ideologies. Universities have been succumbing to the present hysteria against anyone who happens to be unorthodox in his opinions; there is danger that they will soon become entirely rigid as far as ideologies are concerned.