University Hall's recent memorandum on the distribution of printed material in the College buildings is a logical development. This past year has seen in dormitory entryways too many smear posters designed to stir up racial prejudice, too much furtive distribution of literary blasts and counter-blasts in the small hours of the morning. For purely practical purposes, then, the Dean's office and the Student Council Committee have done well in attempting to clean house.
The new ruling should not be taken to mean that Harvard University intends in the future to clamp down on minority views--to repress unpopular causes in the Yard. Little basis for such accusations may be found in the records of the Dean's Office. Harvard's Young Communist League, for instance, has not in the past been prevented from distributing its flyers, although because it fears discrimination, it has refused to register at University Hall. Under the new regulations, such outlaw groups will still be liable to suppression. But Dean von Stade assures us this will not be the case. Official censorship, he maintains--if any should arise from the new memorandum--will be aimed only at advertising and libelous or otherwise illegal literature, not at political or social ideas.
Nevertheless, at least two points in the von Stade memorandum should be changed. Paragraph 2 provides that ". . . before permission is denied, the Student Council or its officers will be consulted." But how much weight will be attached to the Student Council's opinion? It should by all means be accorded every possible consideration. And paragraph 6 in effect nullifies the whole authority of the Dean's Office and the Student Council, for it vests final censorship rights in the Housemasters. "In the Houses, distribution will be permitted . . . except . . . where the Master has expressed a desire to give personal approval."
While it may be assumed that the University is not now scheming to stifle minority views, the present muddy and self-contradictory regulations do not insure future fairness. Nicholas Murray Butler's parody on academic freedom at Columbia presages what may happen here in time of crisis.
