'Deep Throat' Panel Discussion Sparks Free Speech Debate

Four panelists last night split evenly on whether the film "Deep Throat" should be allowed to play at Harvard or anywhere else.

Two of the panelists said the film falls under the protection of the First Amendment, and the other two said the movie may be constitutionally censored.

Alan M. Dershowitz, professor of Law and a defense attorney in the Harvard "Deep Throat" case, said that although students should have voluntarily suppressed the film, "the more obnoxious a statement is, the more the First Amendment was designed to protect it."

Only one of the three National Review editors participating in the discussion said that showings of "Deep Throat" should be allowed.

Dershowitz said, "There's no such thing as a little censorship" and added that the choice is between absolute freedom and absolute censorship.

Joseph Sobran, a nationally syndicated columnist and National Review editor, said, "All freedoms are not going to vanish just because you proscribe the extremes," adding that the same expansive reading of the First Amendment that allows "Deep Throat" would, if applied to the Second Amendment, permit everyone to wear a handgun on his hip.

Jeffrey Hart, professor of English at Dartmouth College and a National Review editor, said, "Pornography is a mode of erotic art of inferior quality," and even bad art has a right to exist.

In response to Dershowitz's statement that Quincy House students should have been more sensitive to the considerable minority who opposed the showing, Hart said, "We're too sensitive to the concerns of others."

Dershowitz argued that feminists were winning the public opinion battle against "Deep Throat" last spring, until two women "made a big mistake" and called in the state. "This converted the issue from an educational experience to an instance of political oppression," he said.