More on Pattullo

To The Editors of The Crimson:

I am pleased the Faculty Council refused the Gay Students Association's ill-considered request that it investigate and reprimand Mr. Edward Pattullo for his published views on homosexuality. It was a disservice to the cause of free speech at this great institution for the GSA to claim that Mr. Pattullo's official role as directory of the Center for Behavioral Sciences constituted a constraint, de jure, on his freedom of speech. The GSA has only one legitimate recourse against Mr. Pattullo's views on homosexuality--to debate them, but not to prevent them. I do not myself share Mr. Pattullo's views on homosexuality, but I am certain the GSA is mistaken in its response to them, a response that dangerously politicizes the academic and intellectual process.

The Faculty Council did not satisfy me completely, however, for it sanctions an unworkable and phony distinction between the "official" and "personal" views of members of the Harvard administration and to other faculty members as well--that ideas and opinions written on "official letterhead" are automatically presumed to be the official views of Harvard University or some division thereof. This is crazy.

I am writing this letter on the "official letterhead" of the "Department of Government" (I can't afford anything else) but the Faculty Council must know these are my own views, not the collective viewpoint of the Department of Government, something not easily arrived at in any case. In short, the "official letterhead" doctrine is untenable. It is unfortunate the Faculty Council did not say as much. Martin Kilson   Professor of Government