Relationship With University Is Mix of Autonomy, Symbiosis

It boasts the Harvard name on its masthead, but otherwise The Harvard Crimson strongly asserts its independence from its namesake--through outspoken student reporters, financial independence, its own building and even its own printing presses.

"[The Crimson] was financially, intellectually and editorially independent," says Derek C. Bok, whose term as University president spanned the '70s and '80s. According to present administrators and editors, it remains so today.

The Crimson enjoys a unique dual position as both a newspaper--with all the rights implicit in the freedom of the press--and a student group that benefits from Harvard resources.

"It would be very embarrassing for Harvard if they could not advertise that they have a University daily newspaper," says Joshua J. Schanker '98, president of The Crimson in 1997. "Although we're independent, we have an interesting relationship with the University where we are recognized as both a student group and an independent organization."

"We also receive benefits....We're allowed to poster on campus and recruit students at registration," he adds.

The Crimson "has a double standard," according to Dean of Students Archie C. Epps III.

"It is both a student group organization and it is considered independent," Epps explains. "It plays two roles. It binds us together because it's a daily, and it provides a public forum."

"We need it very much," he adds.

Despite its role as a public forum for the College, The Crimson maintains its legal independence.

The Crimson hires its own lawyer, Robert A. Bertsche of Hill and Barlow, and, Epps and Bertsche, a lawsuit against The Crimson would not affect the University. A Graduate Board of Crimson alumni--entirely separate from the University--advises the current editors.

Bertsche says the newspaper is a legally separate entity from the College.

"My understanding is that The Crimson does not have to submit itself for approval or certification by the administration," Bertsche says.

The Crimson's incorporation in 1967 also reflects the newspaper's independence.

"This incorporation means that only the assets of The Crimson are liable to satisfy any kind of judgment that may be entered against the newspaper, [and] not those of the University," Bertsche says.

Since its incorporation, The Crimson has remained linked to the campus through its student writers, the University-centered content of its coverage and some minor regulations.

"Much of what we were writing about had to do with one institution," says Paul M. Barrett '83, Crimson president in 1982. "As a practical matter we were not separate from the University."

The Crimson also depends on the University for its Internet connection, for its few student deliverers and for support in some other minor ways, according to Valerie J. MacMillan '98, co-managing editor in 1997.

Despite these persisting links to the University, Crimson reporters historically have not hesitated to exercise editorial freedom in criticizing the University. In general, the University has not attempted to prevent them from doing so. But the amount of administrative ire The Crimson aroused differed from era to era.

"Natural tension between The Crimson and the Administration goes back as far as the creation of the paper itself," says Robert W. Decherd '73, Crimson president 1972. "It's inevitable that there are differences of view and consternation."

But, Decherd adds, "The rugged independence of The Crimson has been well established over a long period of time."

Even in the college days of former Crimson president Osborne Ingram '35, the University did not play a role in deciding Crimson content.

"I don't recall any instances of administrative coercion," Ingram says.

According to a Crimson editor in the class of 1948, the president of Radcliffe tried to prevent The Crimson from electing the college's women as editors in the late 1940s, arguing that Radcliffe News--the newspaper for the women's college at the time--would suffer. The Crimson elected women anyway.

In the late 1950s, Crimson editors delighted in tripping up then-Dean of the Faculty McGeorge Bundy's maneuvering in Faculty meetings, according to a former editor who asked not to be identified.

Bundy never distributed the agenda for his Faculty meetings, which often meant opponents of his moves were not present to vote against him. The Crimson, however, would obtain Bundy's agenda and print it, encouraging Bundy's opponents to attend the meetings and sometimes foiling his plans, according to the same Crimson editor.

Bundy would ask The Crimson editors, "Whose bed have you been sleeping under?" according to the anonymous editor.

Former Crimson president Frederic L. Ballard Jr. '63 was emphatic that no outside party ever influenced Crimson content.

"We could do anything. Nobody told us what to do. We had no Faculty advisor, no Faculty liaison. No one read our copy before it was printed," Ballard says.

The anti-war demonstrations and student unrest of the late 1960s strained the relationship between the University and the paper to the breaking point. Crimson executives stormed University Hall along with protestors and, according to Epps and Decherd, allowed bias to creep into news stories.

Epps recounts one event in the late 1960s which, he says, illustrated the bias in news coverage. One day he saw a Crimson editor participating in a demonstration and, later the same day, the editor called Epps for a comment on a story about the demonstration in which he had been participating.

In 1969, some conservative Faculty members approached conservative members of The Crimson's alumni board, composed of former editors, complaining the paper was biased. "But that didn't go very far," says James M. Fallows '70, a former Crimson president, emphasizing that no members of the administration were involved.

The student demonstrations of the late 1960s brought to an end meetings between Crimson executives, the University president and the Dean of the Faculty to confer on the content of the newspaper.

Finally, in response to the strain of the antiwar years, the administration took definitive action, as Robert S. Sturgis '44, president of the 70th Guard, enumerated the results in a letter to the editors in 1979.

"The direct outcomes were the founding of the Harvard Independent, the expansion of the Harvard Gazette to its present form from a simple notice sheet, the loss of The Crimson's right to publish the University's official notice column and a succession of lean financial years for The Crimson," he wrote.

The Crimson tested out its new status, buying its own printing press in 1973 and beginning completely in-house production.

James G. Hershberg '82, assistant managing editor in 1981, took full advantage of The Crimson's growing independence. Hershberg says he wrote about "Harvard's connection to the nuclear arms race during World War II. James B. Conant ['14], the president of Harvard, played a key role in the decision to use the bomb."

The Crimson's status helped determine its self-conception.

"We thought of ourselves as entirely independent and not as a student group in terms of an organization set up primarily to provide a sense of solidarity to the campus," Barrett says.

A wary approach to University administrators continues today. "We regard the administration with a high level of suspicion, which I think is really healthy," MacMillan says.

Decherd agrees The Crimson's independence gives its writers a responsibility to remain distant from the University.

"Our feeling was that it's a separate entity, separately owned, separately incorporated, with no legal ties to the University," he says. "We were an undergraduate organization which happened to be independent. If you consider The Crimson as an independent newspaper, it's responsibility is to cover everything."

Despite occasional tensions between the paper and the University, Harvard has never gone beyond reprimanding the paper to censor its content.

Epps, in a recent interview, gave an unwritten promise he would "never censor The Crimson."

Former editors also recall a comfortable rapport with University administrators.

Ballard says he still remains moved by the conduct of then-President Nathan M. Pusey '28 toward The Crimson.

"During the spring of '62, we ran a series of articles critical of Pusey; he disagreed, but he was a fine man. No matter how upset he was, he did not say what we ought to do," Ballard says.

Bok says he once reprimanded two editors for parodying a professor in the Confidential Guide in "a tasteless fashion." He says, "I called them in and tried to explain to them how damaging and hurtful it was to the professor involved."

But Bok says he made an effort not to prevent students from expressing their opinions in print.

"I think universities of all places are places that should respect the First Amendment," he says. "Universities are built on the exchange of ideas."

Many past editors say The Crimson also allows reporters to march to their own drumbeat while helping to write the score that combines them in a successful melody.

"The Crimson is probably the most independent institution that most journalists will work for during their working lives," Swanson says. "It is run in a collective way...what attracted me most to the paper was its independence."

Whether independence refers to breaking loose from the ties of overbearing administrators or advertising moguls, University staff and Crimson staff agree that the loyalty of the Crimson reporters has been the integral force in its independence.

"If the question comes down to "This is a good story and it was legally obtained, but I might be ad boarded,' I'll run it," MacMillan says. "Anyone who becomes an executive knows that they may be called upon to do this."

MacMillan says she is willing to make sacrifices for The Crimson's right to free speech. "I have grown to adore The Crimson's independence," she says. "I see us get picked up by The New York Times and The Washington Post. The students here really run the paper."