"Much of what we were writing about had to do with one institution," says Paul M. Barrett '83, Crimson president in 1982. "As a practical matter we were not separate from the University."

The Crimson also depends on the University for its Internet connection, for its few student deliverers and for support in some other minor ways, according to Valerie J. MacMillan '98, co-managing editor in 1997.

Despite these persisting links to the University, Crimson reporters historically have not hesitated to exercise editorial freedom in criticizing the University. In general, the University has not attempted to prevent them from doing so. But the amount of administrative ire The Crimson aroused differed from era to era.

"Natural tension between The Crimson and the Administration goes back as far as the creation of the paper itself," says Robert W. Decherd '73, Crimson president 1972. "It's inevitable that there are differences of view and consternation."

But, Decherd adds, "The rugged independence of The Crimson has been well established over a long period of time."

Even in the college days of former Crimson president Osborne Ingram '35, the University did not play a role in deciding Crimson content.

"I don't recall any instances of administrative coercion," Ingram says.

According to a Crimson editor in the class of 1948, the president of Radcliffe tried to prevent The Crimson from electing the college's women as editors in the late 1940s, arguing that Radcliffe News--the newspaper for the women's college at the time--would suffer. The Crimson elected women anyway.

In the late 1950s, Crimson editors delighted in tripping up then-Dean of the Faculty McGeorge Bundy's maneuvering in Faculty meetings, according to a former editor who asked not to be identified.

Bundy never distributed the agenda for his Faculty meetings, which often meant opponents of his moves were not present to vote against him. The Crimson, however, would obtain Bundy's agenda and print it, encouraging Bundy's opponents to attend the meetings and sometimes foiling his plans, according to the same Crimson editor.

Bundy would ask The Crimson editors, "Whose bed have you been sleeping under?" according to the anonymous editor.

Former Crimson president Frederic L. Ballard Jr. '63 was emphatic that no outside party ever influenced Crimson content.

"We could do anything. Nobody told us what to do. We had no Faculty advisor, no Faculty liaison. No one read our copy before it was printed," Ballard says.

The anti-war demonstrations and student unrest of the late 1960s strained the relationship between the University and the paper to the breaking point. Crimson executives stormed University Hall along with protestors and, according to Epps and Decherd, allowed bias to creep into news stories.

Epps recounts one event in the late 1960s which, he says, illustrated the bias in news coverage. One day he saw a Crimson editor participating in a demonstration and, later the same day, the editor called Epps for a comment on a story about the demonstration in which he had been participating.