Harvard: Con . . . . . . and Pro

(Mr. Guthman won a Pulitzer Prize in 1950 for his reporting of red-baiting activities at the University of Washington.)

Harvard has been red-baited more thoroughly than any university in the country.

There's that stereotype that Harvard regularly turns out a batch of parlor pinks and eager Red recruits. It seems to have replaced the older stereotype that Harvard breeds snobs. It is laughable, but not to the somber ones who compile Reducator lists, sit on un-American activities committees, or write columns in the Hearst press.

They've kicked Harvard's good name around plenty. When the state un-American activities committee investigated the University of Washington, my alma mater, several committee members vowed to fix the wagon of a Seattle attorney who was advising several of the suspected professors.

The attorney was a graduate of the Harvard Law School and that was enough for the committee. That put him in the Commie camp. Later, he was smeared deviously in the committee's final public report to the Legislature.

The Nieman Fellows agree they have found Harvard remarkably free from the intellectual pussy-footing of these days of suspicion. The ignorance and bigotry which seek to make education and everything else 200 per cent American, has made many teachers and college presidents gun shy, but not here.

That Harvard has maintained its deeply ingrained tradition of freedom is a tribute to the good sense of its administration.

Shortly after we arrived here, the Reducator ruckus broke open and a number of professors were maligned for actively supporting liberal candidates in the election campaign last fall.

It has been reassuring to meet many of these men. We have found them doing their utmost to teach the humility, devotion, and tolerance which democracy requires--traits their accusers never learned.

It's too bad, for example, that men who have smeared Prof. Zechariah Chafee, Jr., were not required to take his course on Fundamental Human Rights last term.

The fear of Communism in the universities has been blown far out of proportion and many people have been hurt. It has been based largely on the assumptions that Communists are not fit to teach the truth and should be fired; that there is great danger of students being slanted toward Communism or even recruited in the Party; and that teachers expressing liberal views are giving aid and comfort to the enemy.

We make these brief observations. The intellectual honesty of any teacher who remains loyal to the Communist Party in the year 1951 should be questioned seriously. Each case should be carefully and individually considered.

The number of Communist professors is really small. All out of proportion is the damage in morale, dignity, and effectiveness of the faculty of any school embroiled in an investigation.

The University of California's dilemma over the loyalty oath is a classic example. A number of important professors whose loyalty cannot be doubted have been dismissed and the university has been in a turmoil for over a year.

No teacher who attempts to indoctrinate his students with any propaganda is worth his salt, but the susceptibility of students has been exaggerated. The issues between the East and the West are much clearer than they were in the '30's. Few college students are gullible enough to fall for the Communist gobbledygook at this stage of the game.

The attack on professors for holding liberal views has been malicious and exasperating. We can expect it to continue, but the right of professors to hold unorthodox views or participate in activities of their choosing outside the university must be defended staunchly.

Harvard, it seems, has courageously and stubbornly maintained freedom of thought and speech.