Who’s a Liberal Now?

As Harvard’s Class of 1956 comes doddering back to Cambridge for its 50th reunion this week, many of the old men (and the women of Radcliffe’s Class of 1956) are less than overjoyed with the changes that have taken place. There is grumbling about the fact that Harvard has just lost its president, driven from office for, among other sins, expressing his own ideas about the apparent dearth of women in the ranks of scholars in the sciences. The fact that today’s college administrators, as well as faculty, are at risk of being publicly pilloried by expressing “wrong” ideas cuts deeply into the psyches of graduates whose collegiate experiences were formed during the dark days of the 1950s.

The fifties were a risky period for Harvard, its undergraduates, and its recent graduates. Powerful political forces were attacking the University, contending that it was not sufficiently “anti-communist” in its orientation; indeed, there were many influential officials who suggested that Harvard was a haven for communist influences that intended the destruction of American values. The fervor became so prevalent that the post office promptly delivered to the office of then-University President Nathan M. Pusey ’28 any letter addressed to “Kremlin on the Charles.”

Undergraduates faced the prospect of having to demonstrate their “Americanism” in order to qualify for entry into many professions. There were loyalty tests for new teachers, background investigations for future civil servants, and “character and fitness” committees waiting to vet budding lawyers to make sure that domestic communists, fellow travelers, and “pinkos” could not sap the vitals of America by teaching fifth-grade algebra or becoming licensed to practice estate planning in Iowa.

The country was at war in Korea. There was military conscription. Everyone valued his student deferment, except for those lucky enough to be accepted into one of the three Reserve Officer Training Corps (ROTC) programs that flourished on the campus. But despite Harvard’s vigorous ROTC program, the powerful anti-communist forces that were gaining increasing influence in American life were looking on the University with suspicion. Something of a watershed was reached when a student organization invited Howard Fast, a prolific author and a well-known American communist, to speak at one of its periodic forums. Fast was to debate Professor Edwin O. Reischauer (who later became U.S. ambassador to Japan) on the causes of the Korean War.

The popular press exploded. Both major Boston newspapers attacked Harvard for permitting a notorious member of the U.S. Communist Party to appear on campus to propagandize innocent undergraduates. A Cambridge City Councilman, Edward A. “Fast Eddie” Sullivan, proposed that Harvard Yard should be taken by eminent domain and converted into a parking lot. The Massachusetts legislature debated the imposition of a “loyalty oath” upon the faculty members of any university in the Commonwealth. But Harvard rallied around its traditions of allowing ideas to be freely expressed, and Fast spoke and was listened to politely. He changed no one’s mind. Life went on as before.

As students, we were proud of Harvard and its administration for its steadfast support of the notion that the function of a university is to be a marketplace of ideas, where any viewpoint, no matter how unpopular and even dangerous it may seem, is entitled to be heard with respect. We believed, as did the men and women who taught at Harvard, that the antidote for hateful ideas was the expression of other ideas. We thought that was the right way to deal with the ideological crises of our time. We called ourselves Liberals.

Today, it is no longer possible to regard Harvard as a free and open marketplace of ideas. It has become closed to ideas that are not considered “correct” by some criteria that we do not understand and on which we never had the opportunity to vote. University President Lawrence H. Summers was ousted not only for expressing a multitude ideas that somehow offended devotees of the conventional wisdom—not only his comments on women and science, but also his statements on divesting from Israel and on the history of American Indians, for example.

Moreover, Harvard students no longer have the option of earning commissions and serving their country in convenient and Harvard-based ROTC programs, solely because the ideology of the American military establishment no longer pleases the devotees of the conventional wisdom. Faculty members teach in fear, cautious about the possibility that opinions said in classroom lectures will offend. Another miasma of conformity has drifted upon the Harvard community, and there are few, if any, who will stand up and tell the truth about it: It is foreign to Harvard’s traditions.

We who were at Harvard half a century ago recognize that all of this did not happen overnight. It has its roots in the turmoil of the 1960s when, through fear or negligence, the people entrusted with the operation of Harvard College allowed a small group to dictate the terms upon which the opportunity for a Harvard education was to be enjoyed. Given our experiences at Harvard, we could not help but be shocked when speakers espousing politically unpopular causes were shouted down and were not allowed to be heard. They attempted to express their ideas in the very same forum where we worked so hard and risked so much to defend the principle that Harvard has nothing to fear from the expression of unpopular ideas.

We recognize that the relationship between administration and faculty and undergraduates has changed since that time, and that is probably a good thing. But we wish that the fundamental right to be heard, to have one’s ideas considered by this community, can be restored.

One of the ironies of the present parlous situation is that those who have closed their minds to politically incorrect thought, those who refuse to allow advocates of unpopular ideas to be heard, tend to label themselves as “Liberals.” How little they know. How much they have to learn.



I. David Benkin ’56, a Crimson editorial editor, is a retired federal judge living in Rockville, Md.