THE ONE PIECE of news about the alma mater that reached old-time Harvard alums this year was, in all likelihood, the treatment students accorded Defense Secretary Caspar W. Weinberger '38 at his Sanders Theatre appearance in the fall. It certainly wasn't good news from their perspective, reports of the heckling and efforts to shout down Weinberger touched the rawest fears of campus disorder inspired by the experience of the 1960s.

The actual news was not as bad as the reports suggested. It almost never is where Harvard is concerned, given the propensity of the media to turn events here into mega trends. It is true that a small band of determined speech-wreckers succeeded in drowning Weinberger out at times, clearly abridging his right to free speech. But the vast majority of students in attendance restricted the cheering or booing to within legitimate bounds of self-expression.

Still, to say the Weinberger incident was an isolated act would be disingenuous. Writing in 1972 of the effect of student radicals here, Shattuck Professor of Government James Q. Wilson asserted that Harvard was no longer high on the list of institutions in which "free and uninhibited discussion was possible." The spectre of speech disruptions which troubled Wilson is not as relevant today as the worriers would have us believe.

But the fact of the matter is that this year's confluence of a number of events and movements has brought the issue of academic freedom--which has characterized so much of the political debate in Harvard's history--once again to the fore. The Weinberger incident was only one of several which helped to dramatize the fragility of a university's atmosphere of "free and uninhibited discussion" of issues. While the issues are distinct--ranging from expression in public forums on the one hand to restrictions on the publication of academic work on the other--they all highlight the frailty of free expression on campus.

Shortly before the Weinberger incident. Cambridge voters voted on a proposal that would ban nuclear weapons research within city limits. Luckily, city citizens had the good sense to reject the "Nuclear-Free Cambridge" referendum, which would have sent at best an ambiguous message about the nuclear arms race while clamping down on traditional university norms of free and open inquiry. And several months later, members of the Right showed, not surprisingly, that the Left had no monopoly on improper attempts to subvert free and open inquiry. Harvard and other universities that get money from the Pentagon for research have been chafing under the Reagan Administration's efforts to censor the publication of unclassified research sponsored by the Defense Department.

Nor has the attack on open debate come only from outside the ivory tower. In the past year-and-a-half, bands of hecklers have threatened the free speech not only of Weinberger, but also of the Rev. Jerry Falwell and a representative of the Palestinian Liberation Organization. Muhammed Kenyatta, a Black student leader at the Law School, conversely abridged the rights of participants at a talk by a P.L.O. member when he refused to recognize Jewish members of the audience during the question-and-answer period.

The fundamental principle of any policy towards issues of free speech and academic freedom must be constancy. If a university--and Harvard in particular--stands for something, it must be, as officials have for so long pontificated, for a commitment to utter openness and freedom of thought and inquiry. Thus far, however, Harvard's response to these varied attacks on free inquiry and expression have been mixed.

Academia has adequately recognized the threat from outside. President Bok presented a cogent rejoinder to Nuclear Free Cambridge, while other officials have resolutely assured us that Harvard will not accept any federal funds governed by rules allowing bureaucrats veto power over research results deemed to be "sensitive" to national security. Similarly, official expressions of concern over free speech have been slow in coming but encouraging, as there is news that President Bok will soon draft a statement outlining his defense of the issue.

But these statements seem somewhat disingenuous, for instance, in light of Harvard's failure to act decisively to condemn the law students who refused to allow members of the audience to question a representative of the P.L.O. recently. Bok did not condemn Kenyatta, even though the Law School incident came shortly after he had heaped abuse on the members of the Pi Eta Club for their sexist newsletter. The Pi Eta's actions were no doubt despicable--if not a little foolish--but were Kenyatta's any less?

Nor was the University's concern for free expression apparent in its efforts this year--through Dean of Students Archie C. Epps III--to censor the halftime performances of the Harvard Band. Complaining that the performances did not "communicate across generations," Epps began screening the scripts. Phrases deleted under this supervision included a line from Macbeth.

There must be a strict and consistent approach governing Harvard's attitude on free speech and academic freedom--one in favor of unrestrained openness of idea, and that delicately counterposes freedom of speech with freedom of self-expression, where the two conflict.

These principles, both at Harvard and elsewhere, have been increasingly under seige from self-appointed movements of moral righteousness. Whether it be against right-wingers who see open research as an invitation to communist subversion, or left-wingers who would shout down the wretched opinions of their opponents, civil libertarians have found the going tough recently. Harvard has perennially had a difficult time figuring out its proper position on ethical issues, but on the issues of academic freedom and free speech, the moral high road is too obvious to ignore. It is up to Bok and other members of the administration to clearly and unequivocally show students this way.

DISSENTING OPINION

IT IS PATENTLY ABSURD to portray the disruption of Caspar W. Weinberger '38's speech as a violation of freedom. It was a defense of liberty and a statement of outrage at its usurpation. The behavior exhibited by the students who shouted him down would indeed be unacceptable if Weinberger were not who he is. But as spokesman for the Reagan Administration's war policies. Weinberger has no problem getting his views across, ludicrous as they are. He has all major media at his beck and call unlike the students who stood up to his propaganda. This fact alone would not be ample justification for drowning out his comments. However, Weinberger is responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians in Central America. There is no excuse for these murders, and there is no reason why Weinberger's rhetoric should have been tolerated. The issue is not one of free speech, but one of moral right.