During the past year or two, we have had several incidents on campus that provoked concern about freedom of speech. Last October, Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger was heckled and interrupted in Sanders Theater and could finish his speech only with difficulty. In 1983, members of the audience interfered with another speech by alternately booing and cheering a representative of the Palestine Liberation Organization who had been invited to speak by the Black Law Students Association (BLSA). Last April, the moderator at a panel arranged by the BLSA did not recognize Jewish law students who wished to question a speaker representing the PLO. In universities elsewhere, several controversial figures have been severely heckled; others have actually been prevented from speaking; still others have had to withdraw from speaking after vigorous protests or threats of disturbance by students.

Against the background of these events, I have decided to write an open letter on the subject of free speech and its application to a university community. Some readers may question the need for such a letter. After all, almost everyone understands the importance of free speech under our Bill of Rights, and the few who deny its importance will not be persuaded by anything that I might write.

There are several reasons for discussing this subject openly and carefully. To begin with, commentators have pointed out for years that Americans give overwhelming support to free speech as an abstract proposition but quickly change their minds when they encounter concrete cases involving the expression of unpopular ideas. Not so long ago, for example, a national poll revealed that 68 percent of people 25 to 35 years old and 78 percent of all 17-year-olds favored a ban on any statements on radio or television indicating that "Russia is better than the United States" or "Some races of people are better than others" or "It is not necessary to believe in God."

Even if such polls do not reflect the prevailing sentiments in this community, the principle of free speech is not always easy to apply in specific cases. When is heckling an interference with free speech and when is it simply a means by which an audience communicates its disapproval? Does one promote free speech or infringe on it by requiring a speaker to submit to open debate as a condition of appearing on campus? Does a student organization interfere with free speech if it excludes nonmembers from attending and listening to a speaker on a subject of great interest to them? Having read the correspondence and published commentary resulting from the recent incidents at Harvard, I realize that much confusion exists over issues of this kind.

Some of the disagreement arises from the dispute and uncertainty over the reasons for protecting free seech. It is not enough to say that the principle is written into our Constitution or is a basic part of our way of life. Such statements of not help us resolve hard cases. Freedom of speech exists to further more specific ends. Wrters who have thought carefully about the subject tend to emphasize the following purposes:

--To protect the opportunity of speakers to express themselves freely, recognizing that personal development is a basic value in our society and that freedom to express one's views and discuss them with others is a vital part of personal development.

--To protect the opportunity of listeners to hear and consider ideas, recognizing again that the chance to receive communications of all kinds and the right to decide for one's self which ideas to accept are important aspects of personal autonomy and growth.

--To promote the discovery of truth through an open marketplace of ideas. Of course, no serious person would insist that truth always emerges from free discussion or that the "marketplace of ideas" works perfectly in a world where some people have far greater access than others to the most effective means of communication. What the rationale does rest on is a conviction that truth will emerge more often from a process of free discussion and debate than it will if the government or any other group undertakes to decide which ideas will be heard and which will be suppressed.

Universities have a special interest in upholding free speech. Educational institutions exist to further the search for truth and understanding and to encounter the personal development of all who study and work within their walls. Because the right to speak freely and the opportunity to enjoy an open forum for debate are so closely related to these central purposes, the university has a stake in free speech that goes beyond the interests of its members. Its integrity as an institution is bound up in the maintenance of this freedom, and each denial of the right to speak diminishes the university itself in some measure.

Those who have come recently to Harvard may not realize how often universities had to struggle in earlier years to establish the right to free expression. In 1915, after faculty members had demanded an explanation for the firing of the radical Scott Nearing from the University of Pennsylvania, the president of the board of trustees aptly reflected the spirit of the times when he replied "If I am dissatisfied with my secretary, I would suppose it would be within my rights in terminating his employment." As late as 15 to 20 years ago, a few state legislatures enforced laws banning from campuses speakers who pleaded the Fifth Amendment or refused to sign non-Communist affidavits, or threatened to "do violence to the academic atmosphere." Mississippi officials used such a statute in the late 1960's to keep Charles Evers and Aaron Henry, president of the NAACP, from giving speeches at state universities. These examples should remind us that educational institutions can never take free speech for granted and that its enemies come from many different ideologies and dogmas.

As I have pointed out, the principle of free speech is not always easy to apply. Despite its place in the Constitution, the right to speak freely is not absolute. No private individual has a constitutional right to defame another maliciously or to communicate so loudly or intrusively as to invade another's privacy without justification. No one is free to speak in such a way as to create a "clear and present danger" of inflicting immediate harm on others, a principle illustrated by Justice Holmes's famous example of causing needless panic by falsely shouting "fire" in a crowded theater. In rare situations where choices must be made among competing applicants--as when two groups seek to use the same forum at the same time--officials must choose between them on some reasonable basis even though the effect may be to favor the opportunities for communication of one group and inhibit them for another.

These examples show that free speech, though extremely important, must still be fitted together with other rights and legitimate interests. The same is true on the campuses of universities, which accord free speech such great importance. Even the right of professors to academic freedom does not mean that they can teach courses outside their field of competence, or abuse their students verbally in an unjustified manner, or use coercive power to force their ideas on unwilling classes. (At the same time, students must give professors the freedom to present their views without fear of disruption or harassment.)

With this background, I will comment on several issues of varying degrees of difficulty. In doing so, I will not pretend to answer all the questions and problems that could arise involving free speech. So much turns on the particular facts of each situation and the situations are so numerous and hard to predict that no one could aspire to present a comprehensive treatment of the subject. Instead, I have tried to choose a sample of questions growing out of the recent incidents at Harvard and other campuses in the hope of clearing up some of the confusion that can arise over the application of this important principle.

1. Must we really extend the principle of free speech to blatantly racist or sexist communications that are so offensive to others, so inflammatory, so devoid of intellectual content that they could not conceivably contribute to the pursuit of truth and understanding?

A local example of such communications was the letter sent last year by members of the Harvard Pi Eta Club, which referred to women in terms that can be fairly described as lewd, insulting, and grossly demeaning. The same issue can arise in the case of speeches or communications that are patently anti-Semitic or vulgarly abusive toward people because of their sexual orientation. Although such statements are deplorable, they are presumed to be protected under the Constitution and should be equally so on the campus as well. Why? The critical question is. Whom will we trust to censor communications and decide which ones are "too offensive" or "too inflammatory" or "too devoid of intellectual content?" Past experience suggests that the task of censorship often falls into the hands of people who eventually begin to suppress communications that others consider worthwhile. Besides, should we not trust the members of our community to decide for themselves whether ideas are good or bad instead of allowing someone else to shield them from pernicious thoughts? As a former president of the University of California once said "The University is not engaged in making ideas safe for students. It is engaged in making students safe for ideas." Finally, the most reasonable people will often have a hard time deciding which communications are worth hearing. For example, even a statement as offensive as the Pi Eta letter may have done more than any learned tract to awaken some readers to the attitudes and prejudices that can underlie what might otherwise seem to be merely "innocent humor" Such insights into one's own inner feelings, even by only a single individual, can represent a gain of considerable value.