Drawing the Line

The spring 2001 semester will undoubtedly be remembered for the Living Wage Campaign's occupation of Massachusetts Hall and the selection of Lawrence H. Summers as the 27th president of Harvard University. In particular, the Progressive Student Labor Movement's (PSLM) sit-in drew national attention to campus, as daily rallies brought camera crews and Congressmen alike to Harvard Yard.

But PSLM induced three-week media circus obscures a three-month chain of events that also held the rapt attention of the national media and kept the campus buzzing.

On the first day of February, Kenan Professor of Government Harvey C. Mansfield Jr. '53, a staunch opponent of affirmative action and grade inflation alike, announced that he would issue his students two grades-the grade he thinks they deserve and the "inflated grade" that would appear on their Harvard transcript. Students lauded the conservative campus icon-popularly known as Harvey "C-minus" Mansfield-for his change in policy. But when Mansfield blamed the rise of grade inflation in part on the increase in number of black students at the College in the 1970s, most of the applause stopped.

On the first day of May-a day after University President Neil L. Rudenstine addressed a meeting of the Black Students Association (BSA)-Mansfield got the last word on the issue in The Crimson, criticizing an editorial by Dean of the College Harry R. Lewis '68 that refuted his claims about grade inflation.

In the four months between Mansfield's announcement and his final letter to the editor, a campus controversy flared over issues of free speech, political correctness and racial sensitivity.

Members of an Asian student group and other activists held a rally in April on the steps of The Crimson to protest an inflammatory opinion piece written by an Asian-American Crimson editor.

The Crimson also came under fire from conservatives on campus and in the national media when it refused to publish an advertisement criticizing reparations for slavery.

And after calling for Mansfield's censure-and in some cases, for his resignation-the BSA settled for public refutations by Rudenstine and Lewis and for a clarification of his statements by Mansfield himself.

For three months, there were meetings with administrators, rallies, speeches, debates, sit-ins, panels, forums and letter-writing campaigns. And Harvard, as a community, seems no closer to a consensus on the way it ought to deal with public, though unpopular, speech.

Mad About Mansfield

When Mansfield first announced his change in grading policy, his "backhanded benevolence" was lauded by The Crimson editorial staff and students. Even those who had supported his stubborn refusal to inflate grades praised him for not wanting to penalize the brave students who take his classes.

But when Mansfield further explained his position on grade inflation, tracing lower standards to, among other factors, the increased number of black students admitted to the College in the1970s, many were no longer clapping.

"White professors were unwilling to give black students C's to avoid giving them a rough welcome [in the early 1970s]," Mansfield said. "At the same time they didn't give C's to white students to be fair."

Mansfield clarified his position, saying that his criticism was of liberal white professors rather than black students themselves, but to the BSA he had already gone too far.

"What's very upsetting to people is the claim that Mansfield is making, that there's some inferiority between blacks and whites as far as academics are concerned," said BSA Treasurer Brandon A. Gayle '03. "I think he needs to be confronted about this directly."

Lewis criticized Mansfield for his irresponsibility in making what he called a "divisive" and "unsubstantiated" claim, but BSA called at its Feb. 9 meeting for sanctions beyond verbal criticism.

"The University has not done anything in the way of censuring him," said BSA President Aaliyah N. Williams '02. "For an institution that says it values diversity so much...they should walk the walk instead of just talking it."

BSA leaders immediately scheduled meetings with several administrators to discuss possible ways to discipline Mansfield, conferring with Assistant Dean of the College David B. Fithian, Rudenstine, Lewis and Dean of Undergraduate Education Susan G. Pedersen '82.

On Feb. 13, over 60 protestors-mostly BSA members-silently sat in on Mansfield's Government 1061 lecture. By then, BSA leaders had softened their rhetoric.

"We're just trying to talk to the University to figure out what type of actions can be taken," Williams said. "You can't fire [Mansfield] and you can't completely censor him, but is there any effective way of letting him know that these statements cannot be made?"

Mansfield, for his part, praised the protest for its civility and invited Williams and Gayle to meet with him personally.

After meeting with BSA leaders on Feb. 14, Rudenstine finally issued a public statement the following day, denying the connection between grade inflation and an increased number of black students at the College.

"Nothing I have personally observed, and nothing I have read or heard, leads me to believe that grade inflation resulted from the enrollment of greater numbers of minority students," Rudenstine wrote.

The statement did not address the question of formal sanctions against Mansfield. In fact, it did not even mention the professor by name. What it did do was emphasize that it is "important that students, faculty, and other members of the community feel free to express and debate their views openly and honestly."

Williams said she was happy with the statement, having come to the conclusion after meetings with administrators that no discipline against Mansfield, a tenured professor, could be taken.

She said that after Mansfield's participation in a discussion at a Feb. 19 general BSA meeting, the group would seek no further action against the professor.

It took a while though for the controversy to fizzle out.

On Feb. 22, The Crimson printed an editorial by Gayle arguing that Mansfield had not supported his arguments with evidence, and on Feb. 27, Mansfield criticized Rudenstine's statement in his own op-ed. The war of words in The Crimson lasted until Mansfield's final letter to the editor on May 1.

And on Feb. 25, some members of the Undergraduate Council tried (unsuccessfully) to convince the council to censure Mansfield for his comments.

Both Mansfield and the BSA claimed victory this spring: Mansfield boasted that he raised awareness of the an important educational issue, and BSA leaders said they had succeeded in getting Mansfield to modify his statements and pressuring administrators to respond.

But the issue is in some ways unresolved. Administrators, while adamant that Mansfield could absolutely not be punished, are hesitant to criticize the BSA.

"I thought the BSA behaved very well," says Associate Dean of the College David P. Illingworth '71, who attended the Feb. 13 sit-in. "They were clearly upset."

He emphasizes, though, that though he may disagree with Mansfield, it would have been inappropriate to censure him.

"I would have been very upset if he had resigned over it," Illingworth says.

A Huff Over Horowitz

On Feb. 22, conservative author David Horowitz spoke to an audience of 40 at Harvard Hall. He argued that the New Left is undermining the progress of black Americans with affirmative action policies, suppressing freedom of thought and is contributing to the destruction of American universities.

"The universities," he told the small crowd, "are the most retrogade institutions in American society. They are the least free."

Few could have guessed that Horowitz-once a leading New Left historian-had a plan to try to prove his point.

Days later, Horowitz began an advertising campaign that would catapult him to national prominence-or infamy, depending on who you ask-and would raise serious questions in the minds of many at Harvard and around the country about censorship in the name of being "politically correct."

He submitted an advertisement to about 30 college newspapers-including The Crimson-entitled "Ten Reasons Why Reparations for Slavery is a Bad Idea-and Racist Too."

The UC-Berkeley Daily Californian ran the ad on Feb. 28 and immediately printed a front-page apology when 40 protestors, including Daily Cal staffers, confronted editor-in-chief Daniel Hernandez about the ad.

In the advertisement, Horowitz argues "there is no single group responsible for the crime of slavery" and claims "reparations to African Americans have already been paid...in the form of welfare benefits and racial preferences."

Horowitz' California-based Center for the Study of Popular Culture sent The Crimson the ad on Feb. 26, but ultimately editors decided not to print it.

"The ad was written in a style that seemed as though it sought solely to aggravate our readers, and we didn't feel comfortable running it unedited," said Crimson President C. Matthew MacInnis '02. "Horowitz' advertisement was largely editorial in content and as such he is welcome to submit his piece as an editorial submission where it would be subject to the same standards of editing and fact-checking as our other editorial pieces."

On March 16, a coalition of students stole nearly all the papers of a Brown Daily Herald press run from campus distribution centers in response to the Daily Herald's publication of the ad, drawing fierce criticism from commentators in the national media. The qualified criticism of the protestors by Brown University officials served to further fan the flames.

The Crimson editorial board added its criticism of Brown on March 23, arguing that while the ad may have been offensive, it did not justify the theft of newspapers.

Meanwhile, Horowitz began a campaign against The Crimson for refusing to publish the ad. He submitted a new ad on March 2 entitled "What Harvard Can't Read."

"Even in the dark days of the McCarthy era, Communists could buy ad space in the Harvard Crimson," the ad read. "How did we get here? And where are we headed?"

The Crimson did not publish the ad, again inviting Horowitz to submit an editorial piece.

Postcards supplied to Horowitz supporters by the Center for the Study of Popular Culture have been flooding The Crimson in recent weeks. MacInnis says he has received nearly 2,000.

On Apr. 2 Horowitz spoke at Boston University on affirmative action and other topics. In contrast to the small crowd he drew at Harvard in February, over 200 people had to be turned away from the BU auditorium.

Can the Juice

And controversy soon beset The Crimson once again.

Fifteen Minutes, the weekend magazine of The Crimson, printed an endpaper-a personalized opinion piece-by Justin G. "Juice" Fong '03, on March 15, entitled "The Invasian." The piece bombastically criticized what Fong considered the self-segregating tendencies of Asian Harvard students, often resorting to what many readers saw as crude negative stereotypes.

The article drew scores of angry letters to the editor of The Crimson-over 60 in just three days. Fong himself received about 90 e-mails on the day "The Invasian" ran, most of which he said were critical.

Members of the Asian American Association (AAA0) held a discussion forum the day after the piece ran to consider their options and decided to plan a protest march and rally.

Amid calls for an apology, The Crimson printed a statement by four executives on March 19. The statement, printed on the Editorial page as an opinion piece, said that endpapers are not edited for content and style and emphasized that the views contained within Fong's piece were solely his.

Not satisfied with this explanation, 100 students gathered at the Science Center that same day, 50 of whom marched from Harvard Yard to The Crimson building and staged a rally on The Crimson's steps. In what protestors called a "March for Responsible Journalism and Respect," impromptu speakers voiced their displeasure with Fong's piece as protestors held signs reading "We Want Responsible Journalism" and "Journalism, Not Racism."

"I'm upset because The Crimson and FM edit stuff all the time," protest organizer William L. "Lonnie" Everson '02. "This time there was a lapse in judgment."

Protest organizers also cited what they considered to be a history of insensitivity toward minority groups by The Crimson in e-mails advertising the protest.

The day after the protest, The Crimson formally apologized for Fong's article-and was quickly castigated by conservatives in the national media for abandoning Fong and capitulating to the pressures of political correctness.

Picking up the Pieces

In an attempt to help the campus sort out some of the contentious issues raised by the Mansfield, Horowitz and "Invasian" controversies, Dean Harry Lewis worked with S. Allen Counter, director of the Harvard Foundation for Intercultural and Race Relations, to organize a panel discussion, entitled "Free Speech & Responsible Journalism in the Academic Community."

The panel was comprised of Professors Michael J. Sandel and Pedro Noguera, New York Times columnist J. Anthony Lewis '48, a Crimson editor, and representatives of BSA, Vietnamese Students Association, Chinese Students Association (CSA), The Harvard Salient and The Crimson.

The panel, held on Apr. 17, was poorly attended, according to Lewis, and though numerous points of view were discussed, little was resolved.

For instance, though Sandel and Anthony Lewis are both self-identified liberals, they vigorously disagreed about how The Crimson should have handled the Horowitz controversy.

While Sandel said he thought The Crimson made a "sensible judgment" not to run the Horowitz ad, Lewis criticized what he sees as a "censorial mood" on the Left that he believes is suppressing conservative points of view in the name of political correctness.

Ross G. Douthat '01, editor of the Salient, agreed with Lewis.

"Debates on these issues tend to be debates within factions of the left," he said. "Certain kinds of [conservative] speech are out of bounds."

Harry Lewis says he doesn't know what to think about the Horowitz melee.

"I'd say this is the toughest question that arose this year," he writes in an e-mail.

On the other hand, the Dean of the College says he supports The Crimson's publication of Fong's "Invasian" piece.

"They [the editors of The Crimson] should not have refused to print it on the basis that it might be seen as offensive. Certainly it was no more offensive than a lot of stuff that gets printed in FM, and had more substance than a lot of what gets printed there," Lewis writes.

And Lewis says he does not feel that The Crimson's apology was warranted.

The appearance of Illingworth-Lewis' subordinate in the dean's office-at the AAA rally on The Crimson's steps was not an endorsement of the protestors' cause, Lewis emphasizes. Illingworth attended the AAA rally and the BSA sit-in just as he shows up at every rally-as an observer.

Ultimately, Illingworth says, the question of where to draw the line between acceptable and unacceptable speech in the Harvard community will prove to be a blurry one for some time to come.

"There are writers out there [like Fong] that are trying to be deliberately provocative," Illingworth says. "Next year we'll have new discussions."

Certain things seem axiomatic among Harvard's administration-if not necessarily among the student body. Above all, it is best to "err on the side of free speech," as Illingworth says.

"There's an ethics of means, not just ends," Rudenstine agrees. "I have always felt that the University is the last place where any source of force should be used."

"Any humane institution should not respond with force," he says.

However, self-regulation-like The Crimson's decision not to print the Horowitz ad or the decision of the Bisexual, Gay, Lesbian, Transgender and Supporters' Alliance (BGLTSA) to regulate its gay pride posters after the 1999 uproar over controversial Coming Out Day posters-may be acceptable.

"If the checks are sort of self-imposed, then I'm not so worried about them," says Illingworth, who believes the BGLTSA shot itself in the foot in 1999 by being too inflammatory.

"At any given moment in any given society there we always be some individuals who feel inhibited about what they can say," adds Rudenstine.

One thing is certain: though they raged for three months this past year, debates over the distinctions between persuasion and coercion, censure and censorship, and civility and "left-wing McCarthyism" yielded no clear resolutions about how an academic community like Harvard should preserve the principle of free speech while remaining sensitive to its spectrum of opinions.