"Sometimes that will result in the expression of views that are deeply offensive to some or many people, and we must as a community work hard to understand and be responsive to such situations," the president added. "Equally, however, we must recognize that these situations are a consequence of maintaining a diverse community genuinely committed to free and open expression."

Assistant Professor of Law Charles J. Ogletree Jr., the director the Saturday School program and the moderator of a question and answer session that followed Ice T's speech, could not be reached for comment yesterday.

But DuBois Professor of the Humanities Henry Louis Gates Jr., who as chair of the Department of Afro-American Studies co-sponsored the speech with Ogletree, said he supports Rudenstine's comments.

"I agree 100 percent with the president," Gates said. "I think that it's very important--particularly at Harvard, which has a flagship role in the intellectual community in America--to expose our students to as wide as possible an array of ideas as we can."

Gates, who did not attend Ice T's speech, said that he could think of no speaker whose views are so offensive as to invalidate the right of free speech.

"The best way to treat an idea that we disagree with is to critique it and you can't do that if you engage in prior restraint and do not invite the wide diversity of opinions represented in the political and intellectual community to campus," Gates said. "It's very easy for us to support the First Amendment when we agree with someone's opinion and not to support it when we find someone's opinion out of sync with our own.