IN 1978, actress Vanessa Redgrave won in academy award for her performance in "Julia." She used her acceptance speech, tradition a forum for thanking colleagues and friends much as Marlon Brando had used his a few years before; to air for political sympathies with an approved and homeless people. When Brando refused his best actor award, he did so in support of the American Indians. When Redgrave got up to accept her statuette, she voiced her support for a terrorist organization, the Palestinian Liberation Organization, and attacked "Zionist hooligans" for probating her appearance peacefully outside the auditorium.

Nothing excuses either artist for taking advantage of the massive television coverage of the awards ceremony; Oscars are ostensibly given for artistic reasons, and politics has no place in either their delivery or acceptance. But repeated protests at Redgrave's performances (mostly by pro-Israeli Jewish organizations) and the Boston Symphony Orchestra's cancellation last spring of a concert she was scheduled to narrate raise questions about her right to express herself as an artist and the relation of that right to her political activism.

That this activism has been and continues to be her life's work seems clear. A member of the Trotskyite Worker's Revolutionary Party, Redgrave has proven fanatically devoted to a number of causes, among them American withdrawal from Vietnam, and the antinuclear movement. She ran for British parliament unsuccessfully in 1979, and made and distributed two propaganda films for the PLO under that group's sponsorship. She has called repeatedly for the eradication of the state of Israel; in one of the PLO films she appeals holding a machine gun above her head while dancing with PLO members.

Has Redgrave identified herself with this political stance enough to injure her credibility as an artist or make her artistic appearances tantamount to political statements? Members of the Boston Symphony Orchestra apparently thought to last April, when they threatened to refuse to play in a performance of Stravincky's operaoratoria "Oedipus Rex" if the actress narrated the piece as scheduled. After receiving repeated warnings, both from musicians and board members who criticized her engagement as "provocative" and "insensitive," and from outside lobby groups, the management cancelled the concert, citing safety hazards to participants. Last Friday, Redgrave announced that she will sue the orchestra for $30,000 in damages, as well as seek more than $4 million from two unnamed men she claims have attempted to undermine her career.

Whether she deserves to win that suit is a complicated question. Legally, may be year although orchestra officials insist "cause and circumstances beyond resemble control" endangered the concert, they did break her contest. Morally, however the answer is less clear, just as she feels a moral obligation to speak out for Palestinian rights, to choose who strongly disagree may feel a moral obligation to protest her views by refusing to cooperate with her artistically.

In her frenetic political activities, Redgrave has linked herself inextricably to her causes. Her behavior at the Academy Awards, her two PLO movies, her portrayed of a concentration camp victim on a TV special and the subsequent furor over insensitive casting, all contribute to the difficulty of distinguishing between Redgrave the across and Redgrave the politics. It is possible that by exploiting her position as a public figure and an actress, she may have undermined the legitimacy of her current complaint.

Blacklisting is an insidious practice that no circumstance can justify. But the fact that Redgrave has obstreperously allied herself with such a troubling brand of politics makes it easier to sympathize with her detractors. Furthermore, a musical performance requires an almost mystical cooperation between artists which violent controversy can easily disrupt. Perhaps the BSO insufficient can be excused for their intolerance towards a woman who has consistently associated her political beliefs with her work as an actress.