Watson's Reply to SFAC

Following are the relevant excerpts from Dean Watson's reply to the Student-Faculty Advisory Council.

I realize that my extemporaneous remarks at the meeting of the Harvard College Fund on September 28 were inappropriate and improper because they appeared to suggest guilt by association, a doctrine which I deplore. I am profoundly sorry for this lapse in judgment and I offer my deepest apologies to all concerned.

Praise SDS

The context of the unfortunate reference was this. I said that although many students are unhappy and feel unwilling to tolerate social and political conditions as they find them in this country and although they abhor the war and are impatient with the slow progess the nation is making in correcting racial injustice and eliminating poverty, the large majority of our students do not feel that the way to correct these ills is to disrupt the University. I went on to say that the student body is made up of perceptive and reasonable people, that it is my belief that only a very small group of students is continuously and rigidly intent on obstruction as a technique. As to S.D.S., contrary to what has been said about my remarks, I took pains to praise the S.D.S. for their concern and to applaud the general interest and activity of undergraduates in political and social reform. It was during my remarks concerning the very small number of the far-Left at Harvard that I made the statement in question.

I remarked that Harvard enrolls students from widely varying backgrounds and that while many, perhaps most, of our students acquire deep political interests only after coming into the College, some arrive with quite fully developed ideologies. I also made it very clear that Harvard does not attempt to determine the political views of students or of their parents either in the admission process or otherwise.

I repeat: I am deeply sorry and I apologize.