Seeger and the University

Harvard has traveled a shabby path these last days. The original action of the administration in refusing the Student Council permission to sponsor a concert by Pete Seeger raised questions of the utmost importance. And the administration’s decision yesterday to permit the concert, as long as Seeger is treated as an artist and not a political figure, makes it absolutely clear that their policy strikes at the vital heart of Harvard’s commitment to free inquiry....

The question can be stated quite simply: what does Harvard stand for? And the answer is equally simple: Harvard is committed only to truth and the proposition that truth is best served by free men freely seeking it. That is why professors have tenure. That is why Harvard’s wealth is important—not because it promotes luxury, but because it permits independence. And that is why the administration’s original action and its subsequent statement of policy are a disgrace.

Harvard’s name, the argument runs, must not be associated with disreputable and controverted causes. But an essential quality of Harvard’s name is that its association with a cause does not imply commitment to that cause. And rather than becoming dirtied by its associations, Harvard’s name gains splendor by the freedom with which it accepts any association in the fulfillment of its only commitment.

The administration rightly imposes regulations to make clear that individuals do not speak for Harvard; it has wrongly attempted to prevent an individual from speaking at all, for fear that the University will be thought to be “taking sides” in his case.

If this week’s decisions were taken on legal advice, the administration should find itself lawyers who understand that the President and Fellows of Harvard College are no ordinary corporation, concerned with day-to-day fluctuations in its corporate image, but rather trustees for a great ideal. If the decisions are the considered action of the President, then Harvard deserves a fuller explanation from its servant of why he has departed from the tradition of freedom for which he spoke so well during the McCarthy era.

—May 4, 1961