The Mail TWO AND TWO TOGETHER

To the Editors of the CRIMSON:

After avoiding all Harvard alumni gatherings since graduation in 1952, I attended "Harvard Comes to Maryland" held recently outside Baltimore. I attended to determine in my own mind Harvard's commitment to academic freedom. This is the picture I get after attending a forum with Harvard College students participating, and putting two and two together.

Harvard College undergraduates believe in academic freedom, except when the war in Vietnam is invoked. When challenged by radical antiwar students, the majority put up a weak defense or no defense of academic freedom. Out go the liberal principles of Voltaire, who said, "I may disagree with what you say. but I will defend with my life your right to say it." In came the revolutionary ideals of Marceusse (?) "Free speech for those who believe in the revolution." If the FBI were to inquire after the facts, academic freedom would be invoked as a cloak to deny the public knowledge of what revolution Harvard students support.

Concerning moral standards, Harvard College students will accept legislation by their elders on the Faculty and administration in the area of curriculum. Students will not accept the rules of their elders in the area of morality, I presume for conduct involving sexual relations and the use of narcotics.

If this is not an accurate assessment of student thinking. I would be happy to be corrected. But if it is. does the student body of Harvard College really think us 150,000 slobs, the Harvard alumni, will swallow this double standard on academic freedom which the student body evidently has swallowed hook, line, and sinker? In 1952. the threat to academic freedom came from outside Harvard Yard, from a Senate hearing room in the United States Capitol. The way it looks from grassroots Maryland, the threat to freedom today at Harvard comes from within the walls of Harvard Yard, within Harvard itself.

To the Harvard alumni in Maryland, in perhaps his last public speech, President Nathan Pusey made a passing remark on the difficulties of administering a college and university founded on the principle of freedom, when faculty and administrative personnel attended other colleges with other cultural traditions. How can members of the Harvard faculty and administration who never graduated from Harvard College, really understand the passion, or Puritanical zeal of Harvard College graduates for freedom and mutual respect in the search for truth? How can Harvard students, equipped by their faculty with a double standard on academic freedom, convince an American in grave need of total commitment to quality education for all, that Harvard College graduates have the necessary commitment and moral integrity to win the battle?

Here in the Free State of Maryland, we also have a tradition of freedom. religious tolerance, established by the Maryland Assembly 13 years after the founding of Harvard College. There are some traditions you don't throw out without a fight, unless you are ready to be someone's slave. And freedom is one of them.

Harvard College at its inception was committed to the principle. "Veritas, Christo, et Ecclesiae" -Truth, Christ, and the Church. In the 20th century, Harvard's commitment was reduced to merely "Veritas." If we dispense with academic freedom in Harvard College in 1971, why don't we also, to be honest, also dispense with "Veritas?"

What is your pleasure, ladies and gentlemen of Harvard?