Jones Professor of Classical Greek Literature Gregory Nagy suggested that the United States, like classical Athens, traditionally operates as a democracy internally and an undemocratic power on the outside. He said that the nation’s exterior politics are beginning to pervade its interior through the PATRIOT Act and related legislation.

This dynamic, he said, is “ominously reminiscent of another time and place—I’m thinking of Germany in the 1930s.”

But Kenan Professor of Government Harvey C. Mansfield ’53 criticized the Faculty both for its allegations of intellectual rights infringement and what he described as a liberal bias.

“Civil liberties consist of principles and circumstances. We are at war,” he said. “In wartime, the government is our protector more than it is our enemy.”

Mansfield said that he agreed with Verba and Summers’ distinction between policies that affect the University and those that do not.

“President Summers wants to defend Harvard and Harvard’s academic freedom,” he said. “I think that is perfectly understandable and admirable.”

But Faculty members should not forget that three of the Sept. 11 hijackers entered the U.S. on student visas, he said.

“It’s clear that we have to tighten our security measures,” he said. “The danger is to the majority. It isn’t to the minority.”

Yet Boardman Professor of Fine Arts Irene Winter said post-Sept. 11 restrictions have affected the Harvard community deleteriously, describing one student who was forced to leave the College because his non-citizen parents were incarcerated under recent regulations.

She urged the University administration to ensure that students affected by governmental restrictions had access to the University’s legal resources.

Like the anonymous authors of the statement Thomas read, several members of the Faculty said pressure within the University did not allow them, their colleagues or their students to speak freely on these topics.

The University, Summers said, will do everything it can to ensure than no one’s voice is quashed. He said he plans to use the influence of the University to achieve this goal as much as possible, he said, and urged members of the Faculty to contact the General Counsel immediately if they perceive infringement on their intellectual freedom.

—Staff writer Nathan J. Heller can be reached at heller@fas.harvard.edu.