The Outcome

Most of the comments on the Corporation's decision on Professor Furry, Leo J. Kamin, and Mrs. Markham have been simplicity itself. Purveyors of opinion have either liked it or not, period, depending on their predispositions, and accordingly selected whatever points suited their stand. Though not free from predispositions of our own, we cannot view the Corporation's action in such a convenient way, and any conscientious discussion of the doctrine and decisions must match their complexity.

At first, however, we had better identify our predispositions clearly. During five years of editorial comment, we have maintained three standards: first, a teacher must be able to instruct and investigate without pressure or censorship, whether subtle or otherwise, from Harvard's officialdom; second, no decision involving official action on a man's career should in any way depend on the politics and publicity generated in Washington, Beacon Hill, or elsewhere; and lastly, no special conditions, other than those involving fitness to teach, should be created for members of the faculty because teachers should have precisely the same rights as are common to all Americans.

On the whole, the Corporation's policy is in full accord with those principles, a fact which reassures and heartens us considerably. Despite the heaviest pressure which a mistrustful and frightened public opinion could impose, despite the drama of highly publicized committee hearings and the rather poor spectacle at least one of the witnesses--Professor Furry--made, all three teachers will continue to work at Harvard.

Deserved Applause

Every bit as important as the decisions is the Corporation's way of reaching them and it is here that the Senior Fellows deserve the most applause. The time they spent, the painstaking way they worked, the care they showed for every relevant fact they could unearth, and the anxiousness they showed to amass the views of faculty members--these show the immense store of fairness and rationality that the Corporation brought to this most vexed issue. Compared to the fury and irrationality which marked the investigation's usual impact, the Corporation's quiet and thorough procedure deserves high tribute.

On the question of the Corporation's doctrine, however, such unbounded praise is out of the question. For the most part, it is true, the Corporation upheld Harvard's traditional scrupulousness for academic freedom. It did this by resting much of its policy on the teachers' quality of instruction and their relations with their students, areas in which, as the Corporation noted, Furry, Kamin, and Mrs. Markham are free of the slightest suspicion. What bothers us, however, is that the Senior Fellows were not content to stop there.

One reason is the doctrine by which the Corporation could brand Professor Furry guilty of grave misconduct and yet retain him on the faculty. Though Furry had blatantly lied about a fact impinging on the national security (he was not under oath, and therefore broke no law) he was excused because the incident "occurred in a different climate of public opinion." Since when do climates of opinion justify dishonesty? In asking whether a possible employee was a Communist, the government of 1944 was worried about the same consequences as the government of 1953. This must have made the Corporation squirm somewhat, for its answer is casual, equivocating, and ambiguous, and as such is a disservice both to Professor Furry and Harvard.

Presumably, of course, the Senior Fellows had good reason to use the excuse they did use, but surely no reason could be anything but lame and unconvincing. If it had simply made teaching and student relations its sole standard, this lameness and weaseling would never have been necessary. This is not just a question of public relations; a decision based on such equivocation is close to being no decision at all. Furry's action was grave misconduct, but his retention should have been for clear-cut academic reasons, not vaguaries.

Professional Liars

The second reason for questioning the Corporation's policy is its concept of simple, as opposed to grave, misconduct. According to this, use of the Fifth Amendment is misconduct, whether for protecting one's friends, protesting the committees' methods, or out of fear that the false testimony of others will lead to his indictment for perjury. While the cause of education would best be served by full and frank testimony before committees, and we wish all called would agree, this does not mean that a man should not protect himself from the viciousness of professional liars as they are presently used by committees. Certainly the Corporation should maintain the right to investigate all users of the Fifth Amendment, but by branding "misconduct" a professor's right to this elementary self-protection, it has put accusation before proof. The sentencing should come only after investigation, and the punishment of declaring a man guilty of misconduct should be only a possible result and not a cause of the fact-finding.

This is no mere quibble over words. Misconduct means a public reprimand, affecting a man's future university status and his reputation. By applying it to all cases where the Fifth Amendment is invoked, the Corporation is denying pedagogues rights which are common to all members of the community, to all Americans. Teachers should be free to talk before committees without fear of prosecution for someone else's lies. But until committee procedure is improved to prevent this, the Corporation's policy subtly but actually coerces sub-poened Faculty members to risk perjury charges. It is not a question of the teacher's responsibility to speak frankly and with candor; rather it is a matter which goes beyond that responsibility, which saddles a teacher with an entirely unnecessary burden. Thus we cannot agree that either Kamin or Miss Markham deserved the reprimand given them. Kamin's Communist connections ceased before his University employment; Mrs. Markham never had any.

Today Only

These two deficiencies seriously mar what otherwise would be an excellent report. Because of this, we hope that the Senior Fellows--as well as their new Chairman, the future President--will consider this as a Supreme Court Justice once considered a particular majority decision. This decision, he said, is like a railroad excursion ticket, good for today and today only. Yet this should not be the final word, for there is much that is good in the Corporation's handling of these cases. The extreme liberal may be outraged by the fact that Harvard, in a statement retaining a man who lied about security matters, did not produce a rousing blast against committees. But he makes the same mistake that his conservative counterpart does. Things are just not that simple. On the whole, there are few, who after studying the Corporation's report with care and openmindedness, cannot find basis on which to maintain the the Corporation has made a decision few other governing boards in the nation could have the courage to make. If future Corporation decisions are as painstaking and their results, on the whole, as consonant with justice as this, no one need fear for the future of academic freedom at Harvard.