NDEA Again

Removal of the disclaimer affidavit from the National Defense Education Act by Congress yesterday at last removes the stigma of special suspicion from students and scientists on whom the requirement was imposed. Recipients of NDEA loans and National Science Foundation fellowships were required to swear that they had no memberships in subversive organizations. The new law, finally approved by voice vote in the House yesterday, instead provides for criminal prosecution of subversives who accept the Federal funds.

Elimination of the disclaimer requirement both decreases and amplifies old problems for the College. The new supply of NDEA and NSF funds will increase available financial assistance, shifting the responsibility for decisions of conscience from the College to the individual. At the same time, the embrace between Harvard and the Federal government will close a notch tighter as students and educational programs come to depend on grants from Washington.

Even though NDEA and NSF funds are still specified as "not for subversives," the new form of the specification permits the University to change its attitude toward the government from fixed, rigid rejection to a more flexible relation. The new law, although it creates problems, increases the freedom of the University and of individuals in the University to react intelligently toward individual offers of assistance from the government. As an increase in that freedom, the new law, and its energetic support from the White House, deserve to be hailed.