We disagree no less emphatically with President Butler's statement about academic freedom as it concerns the university teacher. Here he does indeed admit that much freedom exists in some measure; but he would have us believe that it is subordinate to something which he calls the university's freedom. He urges those whose convictions bring their conduct into conflict with the university's freedom "to withdraw of their own accord from university membership."

Must Aid Defense

Since these references to the university's freedom to pursue its unhampered course are immediately preceded by an emphatic statement of the duty of the university to aid and support the defence policies of the national government, these words can hardly mean anything else than that those who are convinced that these policies are mistaken should either keep silent or sever their connection with the university.

So interpreted, the statement is a denial of an essential principle which a university cannot renounce if it is to perform its proper function in our American society. For it is the special function of a university to supply the community with men who can think deeply and clearly because they are detached from the conduct of affairs and are members of a fellowship in which hard thinking and fearless statement of one's convictions are especially prized. The graver the national emergency, the greater the need for honest and courageous thinking about national problems.

Resignation Not Necessary

There are a good many members of American university faculties who are sincerely opposed to the policies of our government with respect to foreign relations and national preparedness. There are some who believe that the totalitarian countries will leave us alone if we leave them alone. There are others who are ardent pacifists and object to the use of force even for the purpose of defending civilization against barbarism. We of the Harvard Group are convinced that these men are grievously mistaken in thinking that the freedom which they and we cherish can be preserved except by strengthening our own armed forces and by giving all possible aid to those nations who are defending our democracy by defending their own. But the fact that these academic colleagues of ours are seeking to maintain American freedom by travelling what we believe to be the wrong roads is no reason for asking them to resign from the fellowship of university scholars.

That a university should endeavor to assist the government in its stupendous task of preparing our national defences--moral as well as material--is highly desirable. But universities cannot remain true to their own ideals if they are to judge men's fitness to remain on the faculties not by the excellence of their scholarship, but by whether their views on questions of national policy coincide with those of government officials or university administrators. Our universities are strongholds of American freedom. If we fail to preserve freedom within academic walls, we shall fail to preserve it in the country at large. And if we fail to preserve it there, our boasted defence of American democracy will not be defence. It will be surrender.  E. MERRICK DODD, JR.  For American Defense,  Harvard Group  Oct. 8, 1940.