Laski, Ciardi Tangle Over Limits on Free Expression

In speeches punctuated with invective, references to Lil Abner, and boos and cheers from the audience, John Ciardi, Briggs-Copeland Assistant Professor of English Composition, tangled with the "treason-beat" New York reporter and writer, Victor Laski, at last night's Law Forum on "Limitations on Free Expression?"

Meanwhile, Oscar Handlin, associate professor of History, remained in the middle and moderator Al Capp sat laughing.

The speakers agreed on one point: free expression should not be limited. But none could agree just what free expression and limitation are.

Ciardi, who opened the forum at the New Lecture Hall, said that present limitations on free expression are forcing orthodoxy to be established in the schools. This is making students "too damn dull and respectable," he commented.

Ciardi stated that progress in art, scholarship, and other forms of free expression is dulled when a spirit of orthodoxy is prevalent.

He hit the present investigations of faculty professors. He said, "I seriously doubt that committee members are wholly disinterested patriots. Their desire to cash in with television and publicity makes them suspect." Ciardi said that if he were questioned, he would reply, "I refuse to answer, not on the grounds of the Fifth Amendment, but because I believe this committee is contemptible, and I am bound as a citizen of the United States to hold it in contempt."

Laski argued that if intellectuals did not "kick" about previous investigations, when business men, "the real backbone of this country," were being probed, and when "Costello was unfairly tried by Kefauver in New York," they had no right to talk about the present investigations.

Laski said that professors, by their conduct in investigations, show that they do not really want to express themselves, but to keep silent.

When Laski was booed by the audience, he said, "Now don't boo me. I know you disagree with me, but I believe in freedom of expression, and I wouldn't boo you."

Handlin, who agreed with Ciardi on the danger of orthodoxy in education, disagreed with his reason for this danger. He said, "As liberals, our role is primarily defensive. But we have not been clear as to what we ourselves have been unclear about and have been struggling for."