Differing Reasons Seen In Polaroid Cancellation

The Committee on Rights and Responsibilities (CRR) may not have heard all the reasons for the cancellation of the March 8 lecture by Edwin H. Land, president of Polaroid Corporation.

The CRR met last Wednesday to hear the case of Allen S. Weinrub, a graduate student in Physics, who was charged with having forced the sponsors of a Physics Department Colloquium to call off Land's talk.

NEWS ANALYSIS

Weinrub had chaired a meeting of about 60 persons who gathered before the lecture to propose various methods of making Land discuss Polaroid's business activity in South Africa. The proposed tacties ranged from a takeover of the podium to waiting for the question-and-answer period following the speech.

Both in the ensuing controversy and the CRR hearing, the debate has revolved around the alleged violation of freedom of speech posed by the threat of disruption. No one has acknowledged the much more complex circumstances surrounding the on-the-spot decision to cancel the lecture.

A number of sources have suggested- and one source has confirmed- that Land is the anonymous donor of $12.5 million for the new Science Center. This donation is the fourth largest in the University's history.

Pound and other members of the Physics Department denied that Land's donations had in any way entered into their decision to cancel the lecture.

The members of the Physics Department who cancelled the lecture said that they feared that Land would be forced into an "extremely tense and painful situation." At an earlier lecture in New York, Land was confronted for the first time by protesters who wanted to discuss the South Africa situation.

According to Robert V. Pound, chairman of the Physics Department, this was "a very traumatic experience" for Land. A recurrence of such an experience here was considered undesirable, Pound said.

Another factor which may have entered into the decision is Land's friendship with many of the Physics professors. Edward M. Purcell, Gade University Professor- who served as liason between Land and the other Physics professors in the hours before the cancellation- said that Land had been a good friend of his "for a long time."

In addition, Land has been a member of the Overseers Visiting Committee to the Physics Department since 1968.

Pound said the lecture was cancelled because demonstrators had planned to disrupt the lecture with a subject "totally inappropriate to a scientific discourse."

Visiting Committee

"We have no right to subject a guest of the University to such an interruption." he said.

However, sources have indicated that Land was not only willing but ?ager to discuss the South Africa question. According to John J. McCann '64, a member of Land's staff who was to assist in presenting materials for the lecture, Land had brought with him for distribution to the audience at the lecture about 200 copies of an article from Boston Magazine supporting the Polaroid position in South Africa.