Our President

To the Editors of The Crimson:

I have heard from reliable authority that Professor Walter Kaiser maligned, denigrated or upbraided President Derek C. Bok today in his Shakespeare survey course. I was shocked to hear this as I had always presumed Walter to be a man steeped in "policy" as Shakespeare uses that word and therefore too canny to vent his spleen or choler (anger) before young and impressionable students.

Students who pay a large tuition to attend Harvard College may be expected to find an environment free from the contamination of faculty rancor and vicious intra-university politics. A good university should be temporary Arcadia and respite before one meets the ravening hypocrisy of American society at large.

It is not appropriate, or seemly, for a man of Walter Kaiser's reputation, standing and accomplishment to use his lectern as a pulpit for deriding the president and subjecting him to mockery. It leaves the students in a position where they must take a partisan stance, even it that be unconcious. And the total effect of action here is to contribute to unruliness, disrespect and worst of all indecorum.

Professor Kaiser should learn, as Essex before him, that the ability to perform dumb shows before hundreds of unlettered students does not entitle any populizer to admonish, lambast or attack this president. Dr. Benito Rakower