Disharmony in Blue

WHILE THE ELI FOOTBALL SQUAD prepares to meet its arch-rivals this weekend, another group of Yalies has spent the past couple of weeks losing a battle. The Yale Glee Club recently lost a fight over not points or pride, but its wish to enter the forum of international politics and propaganda.

The trouble began about a month ago, when John Shirley, a United States Information Agency official and Yale alum, asked the Glee Club to participate in a USIA broadcast for Voice of America radio Aired December 13, the program will mark the first anniversary of the Soviet crackdown in Poland, the move which eventually destroyed the labor union Solidarity and squelched the freedom of the Polish people.

Shirley wanted the much-touted singers of his alma mater to join in the show by singing "Let Poland Be Poland," an anthem which has become the theme song of Solidarity.

The Glee Club had already agreed to record the song when Yale University president A. Bartlett Giamatti stepped in. He forbade the enterprise entirely. In a statement released last week. Giamatti explained that the Glee Club represented the University and added. "The University does not take sides or lend its name to one political cause or another, no matter how compelling that cause may be."

Cries of protest greeted Giamatti's decision from all sides. A representative of a group called Solidarity International of Connecticut Inc. called it a "slap in the face," and criticized Giamatti for not allowing the singers to "lift a finger in support of that embattled and impoverished nation." Columnist William F. Buckley criticized Giamatti's plea that the University not speak out on political issues. "Perhaps a glee club representing a university less fastidious than Yale will...risk its reputation by siding with the men and women of Poland," he wrote in a syndicated column last week.

But these outspoken objections seem to miss the point of Giamatti's action, a misunderstanding which may be his own fault Yale's president certainly does not wish to silence any political expression by the University. Giamatti himself has frequently spoken out in the political forum as one of the leading advocates of federal aid to education. And in a Freshman Week address last fall, he warned of the evils of the Moral Majority.

Nor does Giamatti wish to undermine support to Solidarity a cause which he must certainly condone. He Did not forbid the club from singing Solidarity's song, but merely from participating in the Voice of America broadcast. Yale University he told the Associated Press, would not "become part of anyone's propaganda arm."

What the USIA is planning is not a mere documentary, or a symbolic show of support for Solidarity, but a program to be aired internationally, in a sort of cold war battle over the airwaves--the kind of show that portrays the evils of communism and the righteous causes of the good old USA. While the voices of campus groups ought never to be silenced or censored. Giamatti is right not to drag the name of a diverse liberal university into that particular realm of international politics.

The troubles in Poland continue. The rights of the men and women of the country continue to be limited by an oppressive regime. Our support and hopes--and the strong support of the United States--should be with those who believe in Solidarity, but not through the kind of forum offered by a Voice of America broadcast.

"Lux et Veritas," it says on the seal of Yale University. "Light and Truth." By taking a seemingly uncharacteristic position, Giamatti reminds us that a university must not only lend its support to worthy issues, but also show concern for the way that support will be used.