An Analysis Of Pusey's Report

ON January 21, President Pusey emerged from his den in Massachusetts Hall to blast those "overeager young" student protesters "who feel they have a special calling to redeem society." Harvard students do not often hear from their President, and their reaction to this diatribe may have convinced him to resume hibernation. Harvard's era of dissaffection is far from spent, and Pusey's remarks will do little to hasten its demise.

Presidential reports to the Overseers have never been a vehicle for social criticism, nor even for incisive commentary on the affairs of the University. Included, usually, are a laborious compendium of the University's financial proceedings, a superficial rundown of activities in the college and the various graduate schools--with particular attention given to social clubs and athletic teams--and an obituary column for University notables. They have been dull, unenlightening, but most of all, uncontroversial.

Pusey's departure from this traditional Cream of Wheat diet has been the source of considerable criticism. The President's office complains that his remarks were taken out of context and distorted by the press. They correctly note that he referred to only a small minority of students, and that his remarks were not limited to activism at Harvard alone. It is true that press accounts of the report, including the CRIMSON's, have centered mostly on his vilification of violent protesters. But Pusey is not naive in dealing with the press and he certainly knew that such rhetorical flourishes as "Walter Mitties of the left" would inspire headlines.

Students who take the time to read the entire report will find they learn as much about Pusey from his description of what is right about Harvard students as from his more widely circulated commentary about what is wrong with some of them. "The vast majority of Harvard undergraduates went about their essential business seriously and gaily," Pusey says, thereby creating "an extraordinarily vibrant community life." Exhibiting his fondness for numbers, he goes on to note that 800 students performed in various plays, that 2000 undergraduates earned $826,000 in term-time employment, that 1000 participated in service programs, that 60 ("three score") seniors won honorary fellowships, and 69 per cent graduated with honors. He devotes considerable attention to the academic achievement of Harvard athletes (seventy-nine lettermen received honors; eight team captains received cum laude degrees and four got magnas).

Not a single undergraduate publication was mentioned. Not a single political group was mentioned. The Association of African and Afro-American Students was not mentioned. The Harvard Undergraduate Council was not mentioned. The Student Faculty Advisory Council was not mentioned. The Harvard Policy Committee was dismissed with a single sentence. The re-examination of goals at Phillips Brooks House was not mentioned.

These errors of omission are significant, for the picture which emerges is of Harvard in a bygone era. The typical undergraduate, in Pusey's view, studies hard, admires scholar-athletes, dabbles in dramatics and noblesse-oblige service projects, and earns a lot of money. "These students, as all people in our society, hold various opinions about the war and other of our present difficulties, but on the record the bright, avidly questioning, lively undergraduates of the past year were very far from being an alienated, disaffected or drop-out generation."

THE problem with the President's Report lies not in any failure to distinguish acceptable from unacceptable protest, nor even so much in his untimely vituperation against the activist element. It lies in Pusey's blindness to the magnitude of disaffection at Harvard. Like the author of another recent "annual report," Pusey senses a certain restlessness--but his faith in the loyalty and middle-of-the-road acquiescence of all but a handful of his students remain unshaken. When he undertook to insult students who believe American society is rotten and are in need of redemption, Pusey did not realize how many students see themselves as fitting this description. Ninety-four per cent of the senior class opposes the war, according to the recent CRIMSON Poll, and nearly a quarter stand ready to defy the laws of their country in protest of that war. Three hundred students took part in the Dow protest, and additional hundreds turned in cards to support that action. In short, there is more to disaffection at Harvard than the gentle turbulence caused by the forward motion of this mighty educational frigate.

PERHAPS the scariest aspect of President Pusey's commentary was his assertion that it is the job of the deans to straighten all this out. "Bringing students of this persuasion back to reality presents a new kind of challenge to education, to faculty certainly, but especially and with painful immediacy, perhaps to deans." With all due respect, the prospect of marching bravely to the new world, in a column headed by Messrs. Ford, Glimp and Watson, is not overly appetizing to most Harvard students. One suspects that the Deans, too, would find it unappealing.

Asked why Pusey had used the report to attack student activist, one high college official shook his head and answered, "I don't know. It certainly seemed excessive to me." Indeed, this is the question that everyone was asking about the report, and no one seemed able to answer: why did he do it?

All indications are that the answer is not money. The number of alumni who wrote after the Dow protest that they were halting contributions was negligible. Most such letters, reportedly, came from men who had seldom, if ever, given to the College. The twenty-fifth reunion drive is said to be heading toward another record year. Moreover, whatever may be said of President Pusey, his actions in the past do not seem to have been motivated by financial considerations. His fight against the NDEA disclaimer oath didn't ease the University's financial problems.

Perhaps the most frequently voiced explanation for the report is that Pusey is simply out of touch with the undergraduate population. Those students who found his remarks gratuitous were doubly upset because they so rarely hear from Pusey in any context.

A GLANCE at the President's report will reveal the major cause of this shortcoming. Running Harvard University is a gigantic task. In the last ten years, Harvard's budget has tripled to $150 million. There were 14,779 students enrolled in the University last year, not counting 4840 in the summer school and 5469 in various extension courses. The number of corporation appointees was 6788, up from 3496 a decade ago. This administrative burden leaves the President with relatively little time to devote to the College, even less to college students.

Despite all these considerations, however, the College remains the center of the University, and students are what the College is all about. The depth of misperception shown in Pusey's remarks reveal a need for re-ordering priorities at Massachusetts Hall. The President could greatly expand his contact with undergraduates by eating one lunch and one dinner per week in a College dining hall. Moreover, he could seize the initiative for student contact at appropriate times. For example, when SDS challenged him to debate University complicity in the Vietnam War, Pusey apparently looked upon this as an affront to the dignity of his office. Had he instead accepted the challenge as an opportunity for valuable exchange of views, both he and the students might have gained some useful understanding of each other.

SUCH communication is made all the more vital, by virtue of the perplexing image which President Pusey projects to students. Over and over again we are told that he is an idealist, a man of great devotion to principle. It was Pusey's backing, we are told, which allowed Provost Buck to stand up to McCarthyism at a time when other Universities faltered. He waged a fight against the NDEA disclaimer oath which was dangerous and costly to the University. At the time of the Dow demonstration, he vigorously denounced interference with individual freedom of movement.

The President's own record, however, simply does not square with these lofty ideals. Most students do not remember his refusal to allow non-Christian services in Memorial Church, or even his quickly reversed decision to outlaw a student council sponsored Pete Seeger concert. But more recent actions do stick in the minds of many students. The University scoffed at suggestions that morality should enter into its financial planning when student civil-rights advocates suggested it divest itself of Mississippi Power and Light Co. stock. The University failed to stand up against the Massachusetts teachers' loyalty oath, and fired Samuel Bowles, professor of Economics, when he declined to sign it. Bowles was then forced to go to the expense of enjoining the University's action, until a parallel case involving an M.I.T. professor was settled. Most recently, the President's office arbitrarily banned educational television at a Vietnam Teach-in.

THERE is no purpose to be served by beating these departed dobbins, except to point out that in the minds of many undergraduates, Pusey's devotion to civil liberties is erratic at best. Commenting on the report to the Overseers one Faculty member observed, "If 500 students had gone down to Yale this fall and started a riot in which property was damaged and people were arrested, Pusey wouldn't have given a damn. Oh, he might have had some pablum for the press, but he wouldn't have cared about it."

This man's view is shared by an ever increasing number of undergraduates: Pusey gets angry--and he was very angry at the Dow demonstration--only when his own peculiar sense of social order is upset. Football riots, a common enough occurrence during the President's undergraduate career, do not upset this order, and would never be belabored in an annual report. Impolite demonstrations against large corporations do.

It is just this devotion to conserving a liberal order which student activists find increasingly infuriating. In the name of neutrality, Harvard lends de facto support to the instruments of establishment, simply because they are established. And this, the activists realistically point out, is no kind of neutrality at all.

FIVE years ago, the Dow and McNamara protests would have been unthinkable. But in the intervening years, not only has the war gotten worse, but the tone of undergraduate life has changed. Students arrive here with far more sophisticated awareness of sex, drugs, and student activism. Far more than any who came before them, they are questioning the old order. They are not only agonized by the War in Vietnam and by the country's refusal to face the triple crisis of poverty, race, and urban life. They believe morality must be injected into the system somewhere, and they think the University is a logical place to start. And so they are frustrated to find Harvard motivated by such expedients as politeness and fear of unfavorable publicity.

It is ironic that President Pusey, who undoubtedly takes sincere pride in his own commitment to moral principles, should be attacked on these grounds. It is also a revealing testimony as to how badly his communication with students has deteriorated