PROFESSOR BRAUCHER:  I want to welcome you all tonight to the fifth of the Harvard Law School Forum programs.  The question tonight is: "Can We Afford Academic Freedom?"  I take it that needs a little definition. In the invitations to the speakers, three subjects were listed under that general heading.  The first was loyalty oaths for teachers; the second was restrictions placed upon outside speakers who speak on the campus; the third was bias in the curriculum.  From conversations with the speakers, I gather that none of those three subjects is really as interesting to them as the more general I question: What is the extent, or what should be the extent, of freedom of I expression by a teacher or by a professor?

        On this question, the attitude of the moderator is of course one of indifference.  That may be the wrong word.  It might be better to say that he approaches this in much the same spirit as the audience ought to approach it -- with the expectation that some of the speakers will say things that he likes, and some of the speakers will say things that he does not like, in the hope that along with enough heat to keep things interesting, there will be some little light thrown on the problem presented.

        Now, in order to have a rational discussion of almost any problem, you have to have some underlying basis on which everybody more or less agrees.  That is particularly true when you deal with a subject on which people feet very strongly.  Words can be used in much the same way as knives.  In that realm, though, it seems to me that perhaps knives are really a little better.  If you are going to avoid use of words as weapons, you must appeal to some underlying goals or aims on which all more or less agree.  Then you can use rational processes to show that a particular line of policy serves to promote those goals.  Then, of course, the opposition says, "No, that's all wrong." They use the rational process to show that a different line of policy will serve those same goals.

        Now, between those two extremes on which we all agree -- that is, I thin we all agree -- you have a question of degree: Just how free should man be who is a teacher?  I take it that the position of the University is no one of complete impartiality on this; it has taken a position to some extent.  They try to get people of reasonably decent character and the hope that they won't do anything that is too badly wrong.  And there are people who think that is a little too loose.  I would hope that the speaker who say, "Let's leave it loose," or "Let's loosen it up still more," will indicate just where or how far they would go with this thing; and that the speakers who say, "Let's tighten it up," will indicate a little about how far to tighten it up.  The range is from license on the one hand to strait jacket on the other.

        The fact is that over the last few years there has been a certain closing, of ranks in the American scene. A good many people have come to take the view that the Russians do not believe in goodness, truth, beauty, wisdom, or material prosperity, and that they are hostile to those of us who believe in those goals.  People who come to that view sometimes come to it with a good deal of vigor.  The United States government, for example, has undertaken a rather vast program to see that employees of the government, at least, do not become too sympathetic to these Russians.  That has its kickback on the academic world, and one of the questions tonight is: To what extent should teachers be treated like government employees and expected not to be too friendly with Russians or too sympathetic with Russians? That will be one of the questions we'll talk about.

        When you start that sort of limitation, you run into trouble. My favorite is the Washington Bookshop, listed as a subversive organization by the Attorney General of the United States.  I'm told the Attorney General was right: It was a co-operative bookstore in Washington, D. C., and it was taken over by the communists one night at a meeting, according to my information.  But many, many people went to the Washington Bookshop the way some of you go to the Harvard Coop: They got a discount on books -- but they got a discount on books only by becoming members.  Now any government employee who did that was, of course, a member of an organization on the Attorney General's list; and they immediately had a very serious problem in all the administrative agencies.  What would they do with these people?  Were they supposed to fire them all?  If you're not going to fire them all, how do you decide which ones you do fire, and which ones you don't?

CAREY McWILLIAMS:  Under the general heading "Can We Afford Academic Freedom?"  I have been asked, along with the other speakers, to discuss three specific issues -- namely, the use of loyalty oaths and similar techniques to screen faculties; the placing of restrictions on the extent to which outside speakers will be permitted to make their views known on campus; and, last, the advisability of revising the curriculum to counteract alleged "un-American" bias.

        First: Screening.  The training, accreditation, and promotion of teachers and faculty members are matters best handled by the faculty or teaching profession.  A faculty is the best judge of the fitness of its members.  Teachers generally may safely be entrusted with this function because each teacher has an equal interest in the principle of academic freedom, in preserving professional standards, and in upholding sound tenure practices.  The specific issue, however, usually relates to another aspect of the matter -- namely, the use of a test oath to identify, and then eliminate, those teachers who are or once were members of organizations said to be subversive.  I am wholly opposed to this type of screening.  My objections might be summarized as follows:

        (2)  Political test oaths are designed, as their history indicates, to subordinate the will of the oath-taker to that of the oath-giver.  A general affirmative oath can be given without any suggestion that the individual's autonomy has been infringed; but the test oath has a different effect.  The test oath always contains some specific doctrinal disavowal.  The doctrine, of course, is never defined.  In fact inquisitors have always shied away from any attempt to define heresy, since they want to be free to brand as a heretic any person who refuses to knuckle under to their dictates.  Heresy is essentially an attitude, a disposition, an inclination; hence it cannot be doctrinally defined.  What is the specific modern heresy?  Is it communism?  Yes, beyond any doubt.  But is it also socialism and marxism or a belief in the welfare state?  And what about modern abstract art -- which Congressman George Dondero has found to be highly subversive?  The late George Richards, owner of three powerful radio stations in Cleveland, Detroit, and Los Angeles, took the position that be-bop music was communistic.  And John T. Flynn insists that, just as socialism is more dangerous than communism because it is more insidious, so liberalism is more dangerous than socialism.  Heresies are always the other side of the coin of some particular person's orthodoxy; without an orthodoxy, there would be no heresy.

        (3)  The effect of the test oath is to coerce conformity.  The more scrupulous the oath-taker, the more hesitant he will be about doing or saying anything that might possibly violate the oath, and many of the oaths now in use relate to the future as well as the present and the past.  In self-protection such a person must finally come to follow two simple rules of conduct: one, to think only approved and orthodox thoughts; and, two, when in case of doubt, not think at all.  He will draw back from any association or relationship that might call in question the integrity of his disavowal.  The experience of the University of California, whose regents recently rescinded the loyalty oath previously imposed on the faculty, is conclusive on this point.  Test oaths are an infringement of freedom of conscience and belief.

        Second: Restrictions on speakers. This issue usually arises only after a speaker has been invited to appear and has accepted and some outside pressure group has started a campaign to force the university or college to cancel the invitation.  No university should ever knuckle under to this kind of pressure.  Generally speaking, I would adopt the position of the American Civil Liberties Union on this problem -- namely, that "student organizations should be free to invite outside speakers of any political or religious affiliation to speak to them upon any topic.  Where a question arises as to a speaker who is to address the general student body, the faculty-student committee should act."  On the campus, as off, a denial of free speech is more likely to provoke unrest than complete freedom of speech.  Students commonly invite as speaker the one person they think might arouse the ire of the administration.  And this is not a bad tactic; it is one means of testing whether speech is free and, if so, how free.

        Third: Revising the curriculum.  I have no doubt that there is room for improvement on this score in most schools and colleges.  I have no doubt, also, that many textbooks are biased or inaccurate.  But these admissions have nothing to do with the immediate situation.  What we face is a concerted attempt on the part of individuals whose competence in such matters has yet to be demonstrated to impose their views on professional educators, under threat of denouncing, as subversive, any educator who refuses to knuckle under to them. C urrently the breadth of their denunciations is amazing.  Glance, for example, at the recent report of the Education Committee of the California State Senate, and you will understand why some unkind columnists have suggested that the state should be declared incompetent and a guardian appointed.  Then there is Indiana; unfortunately there must always be Indiana.  The other day, the State Superintendent of Public Instruction, Mr. Wilbur Young, appointed an advisory committee of nineteen Catholic priests to screen public-school textbooks for possible traces of subversive influence.  Asked why he had selected only Catholics, Mr. Young, a Methodist and a Mason, replied: "[They are] considerably versed in being able to spot communist or subversive influence."  This may or may not be true -- but why is Mr. Young abdicating as Superintendent of Public Instruction?

        I have said enough to indicate, I am sure, that it is my position that we are not discussing the real question this evening.  What we should be discussing is the technique by which the structure of civil liberties and civil rights is breached in a democracy.  The technique is simple.  First a target group is, selected.  The target group -- a French sociologist uses the phrase "accurse group" -- is made up of citizens who are competent, in the perhaps-too-generous sense that they have not yet been confined to mental institutions; law abiding, in the sense that they have not been convicted of criminal offenses; and adult, in the sense that they are of age.  Then the notion is propagated that despite these credentials the members of this group cannot be permitted to enjoy the same rights and privileges as all other citizens, subject to the same responsibilities.  The category of the target group is then enlarged by such familiar techniques as guilt by association, guilt by presumption, guilt by relationship; guilt by gossip; guilt by dissociation; guilt by coincidence; and, finally, guilt by accusation.  Soon the original conception of the target group has, like an old soldier, been permitted to fade away.  Suddenly there is no definition.  Suddenly any person can be placed in the accursed category simply by hurling an accusation at him.  Suddenly the fear that this will be done becomes so great -- and is so paralyzing in effect -- that the whole society freezes in a pattern of total, blind conformity.  The end result, of course, is the destruction of constitutional freedom.  This is the problem we should be discussing.  Book-burnings, loyalty oaths, and denials of free speech are merely warning signs of the real danger.  Happily we have not yet gone so far down this road that we cannot withdraw.

PROFESSOR BRAUCHER:  The next speaker, a former student at the Harvard Law School, has become well known in academic circles through participation in the preparation of publications known as the "Reducator" reports, a series of reports listing the affiliations of faculty members in various colleges and universities with organizations thought to have communist sympathies.  Naturally, the first of these was on Harvard and listed the activities of erring educators prior to 1949.  He has since worked down the ladder and tells me that he has recently compiled statistics on certain women's educational institutions.  The letterhead of his organization, the National Council for American Education, contains what I think is a rather good statement of its aims: it is "devoted to the stimulation of sound education, and the eradication of Marxism and collectivism from America's schools and national life."  That organization is not to be confused with the National Education Association.  Mr. Zoll.

ALLEN A. ZOLL:  Mr. Moderator, Fellow Americans, I hardly know whether to address you as "Fellow Americans" or fellow suckers.  I think we are all that.  You probably feel that you are that to have paid seventy cents, which I hear was the terrific price charged, to come here tonight, and I paid more than that to come up here and talk to you.  I think we are both a little silly.  I feel that I particularly was, because all day I've been feeling like Daniel must have felt, when he started down into the lions' den.  And they made me even more completely unhappy by telling me a few minutes ago that the audience is very liberally sprinkled with superintendents of schools and others who, I know, have no stomach for some of the things I am going to say.  I also feel a little bit like another celebrated man, the Duke of Wellington, who, the night before Waterloo, assembled all his generals before him in their gold braid and beribboned splendor and said, "Gentlemen, I don't know how you'll affect the enemy, but frankly, you terrify me."  And you certainly do have that effect on me.

        Academic freedom, or a discussion of it, is normally divided into two phases: One, academic freedom with respect to research, and the other, with respect to teaching.  I'm going to surprise some of you here by stating at the outset that I am heartily in favor of complete academic freedom as regards research.  But that is not truly and completely a part of academic freedom, because that freedom exists for everybody.  It is not just some particular thing thought up for academicians and the professors.  The second phase of academic freedom, and the one that I will deal with exclusively, is the freedom to teach whatever the teacher wishes, and to this I am completely and vehemently opposed.  May I, at the outset, briefly state the reasons I am opposed to academic freedom.

        First, I consider it wrong in principle.  Second, even if it were sound in principle, I consider it inimical to the best interests of the American people and America itself.  Third, academic freedom is undemocratic.  Hardly any group harps more on "democracy" than teachers do, and here by plugging for academic freedom they are arguing for the very essence of lack of democracy.  Why should teachers be in a class by themselves and be allowed freedom that others do not have?  Is that democratic?  The fourth reason is that this special brand of freedom interferes with the freedom of everybody else.

        I will discuss these points in detail in a few minutes.  But first I want to tell what academic freedom is, as I see it.  I think that if we examine the nature and characteristics of it, it would prove itself to be entirely fallacious.

        Secondly, it is not a God-given right in any sense, for there is nothing God-given which confers the right to be paid for teaching others whatever appears to oneself to be truth -- least of all, those who deny that there is a God.

        Third, academic freedom is not a "great tradition" hallowed by time and long usage, although its proponents often say that it is.  It was never heard of in this country farther back than a hundred years ago, and it did not show any strength until well into the twentieth century.

        Fourth, academic freedom is far from being universally supported in the United States.  For instance, it is anathema to every American church school and church college, and there are more than 350 of these, of which 244 were organized before 1900.

        Fifth, unrestricted freedom to teach whatever it pleases each professor to teach is anti-lawful also in every non-church American educational institution dedicated by charter to any general or particular moral purpose, political ideal, or any other general or specific aim or purpose.  For clearly if the charter states that some purpose be served -- as many of them do, including Harvard -- that students be taught the immortality of the soul, and to be honest, loyal, courageous, just, prudent, co-operative, charitable, or any other human virtue, that institution's professors are or should be, legally estopped from maintaining the contrary, and moreover they should be required to teach the things that the institutions look to them to teach.

        Perhaps now that I have outlined some of the things that it is not, we had better consider what academic freedom is.  Frankly, it is this: It is the right to teach what one's employers do not want taught, without such teaching affecting in any manner the teacher's salary, tenure, promotion, or assignment.  Let me repeat that.  Academic freedom means the right to teach what the employers do not want taught -- because they need no academic freedom, naturally, to teach what employers do want taught -- and they want something taught or they would not have the school there in the first place, and the professor would not be there in the second place.  Therefore, academic freedom must stand for the right to teach what the employer does not want taught.

        Academic freedom does not have anything to do with teachers' ability to say the things they want to, any place else.  If they can induce other people to pay them for teaching their own thoughts, well and good.  But academic freedom insists upon the right to teach as they want to, together with unimpaired payment for such teaching -- to be paid by those who disapprove such teaching, in buildings owned by the disapprovers. So what academic freedom really means is this: the right to compel an employer to pay for what the employer does not want taught on his premises.  Isn't this preposterous, really?

        Clearly, from the practical view, academic freedom is the very opposite of freedom, because it attempts to compel employers, or the general public, to pay for something they do not want taught.

        Let us see what the professors themselves say about academic freedom.  The official definition of academic freedom is contained in a little pamphlet that the American Association of University Professors and American Association of American Colleges published.  I'll omit the part about freedom of research, and read the entire portion dealing with teaching:

The teacher is entitled to freedom in the classroom in discussing his subject, but he should be careful not to introduce into his teaching controversial matter which has no relation to his subject.  Limitations of academic freedom because of religious or other aims of the institution should be clearly stated in writing at the time of the appointment.

        At a quick reading that sounds all right, but let us look at it a bit carefully.  "The teacher is entitled to freedom in the classroom." It is here indicateda -- and in fact, is generally assumed -- that "the classroom" is the teacher's own province.  But is it?  Emphatically not.  That classroom belongs to the state, or to others, and not to the teacher.  The classroom is under the trust of trustees and is also subject to the administration of a president, superintendent, or principal.  The teacher is present as a subordinate under orders.  He is an employed person, a hireling -- although he revolts against that wholly accurate description.  Sometimes he even denies, in published pronunciamentos, that he is an employee.  But let's go on with this official definition.  "The teacher is entitled to freedom in the classroom in discussing his subject."  Thus, if his subject is geology, is he not entitled to talk in any other field?  Thus, perhaps, if it is paleontological geology, he cannot freely discuss structural geology, or geodetical geology, or geography, or cosmical geology, or astronomy, or the history of geology, or the effect of geology upon the individual and civilization.  Or does his subject mean everything logically related to geology -- which really includes everything?  Deponent saith not. "His subject" in this connection is as ambiguous a statement as was ever made by a scientist.  But professors must necessarily put science aside when they talk about academic freedom, because they cannot be fettered by any scientific restrictions.

        To continue our analysis of the official definition: " . . . in discussing his subject, . . . he should be careful not to introduce into his teaching controversial matter which has no relation to his subject."  Then what does "his subject" mean?  These words themselves exclude other subjects, including "controversial matter" as well as non-controversial matter, in the other subjects. Deponent again saith not.

        The official definition goes on to give other limitations, but time forbids dwelling on it longer.  I think I have shown how nonsensical and indefensible is the "official definition" of academic freedom.  Dr. Jordan of Stanford University in 1900 gave the real definition of what they mean by academic freedom when he said this: "Whenever a professor is chosen to occupy a chair in any department, he is free to teach as he sees fit and no restrictions are placed in his way whatever."  That is what the professors are talking about when they speak of academic freedom.

        Over a period of years a great many school administrators, principals, and superintendents have come to the belief that the schools are their own private domain.  I disagree with this belief.  That is why the educators raise so much steam about the National Council for American Education.  As the previous speaker said, it is not to be confused with the N.E.A., because the N.E.A. stands for things that are quite different from those for which we stand.  The only thing I envy about them is their size.  They have hundreds of thousands of members, whereas we have only thousands.

        Parents spend much money, and often make great sacrifices, in order that their children may get an education, as you know; and there is a freedom that is far more important, to my mind, than academic freedom, and that is parental freedom -- the freedom of parents to have their youngsters educated the way they want them educated.  Parents go to a lot of expense and hardship to put their youngsters through school, and in general they do not want to have their sons and daughters come out of school as atheists, agnostics, communists, or socialists -- and there are a lot that are coming out of school with those un-American, irreligious ideologies.  You may not believe it, you may not agree with it, it may seem very funny -- but such is the case, nevertheless, and if you are an astute observer you will see it for yourself in many parts of the country.

        Also, there is such a thing as student freedom. The students in school are entitled to learn to live happy, useful, successful lives, and any professor who makes out of his youngsters in the grade schools, or out of young men and women in the colleges, socialists or agnostics is doing a tremendous disservice to that person himself.

        Furthermore, those who stand for academic freedom are limiting the freedom of all the people, except the academicians, because the people have certain rights, mainly the right to have their children educated as the people want them to be.  This whole question of freedom is extremely important; and, as is apparent, there is currently a great deal of talk about it.  To my mind, the government's only reason for existence is to preserve the freedom of the individual.  A good example of what I mean by individual freedom is that a person has a right to swing his arm in any way and as long as he wants to, provided it does not impinge upon somebody else's nose.  The instant it does, that other person's liberty is infringed.  The arm-swinger has no right to do that, and the state should and will stop him, or will punish him for infringing on the freedom of someone else.  The same rule applies to academic freedom.  When the freedom of the academician hurts the country as a whole -- and/or the freedom of the people who want their sons and daughters to receive the education they want them to receive the whole case for academic freedom should be pitched out of court as a fraud, a fake, and as inimical to the best interests of the people and of America itself.

        About loyalty oaths, I will say this: I believe in them and advocate them, but in actuality loyalty oaths are almost useless, because a person who is an out-and-out communist will lie, swear falsely, even perjure himself, if he thinks he will not get caught.  The only value of loyalty oaths, as I see it, is that through them we can determine which people yell and scream about them and about their sacred "academic" freedom.  They are useful mainly as a lodestone, a test tube, to see which teachers are on the right side and which are not.

        Former Dean Roscoe Pound of the Harvard Law School, for whom I know you have great respect, and under whom I studied in this very building before you were even born, made a statement during the recent California loyalty-oath controversy, which I think is the all-time answer to the protests against loyalty oaths. He said (I quote him approximately although not verbatim): "I cannot see why any person who believes in America would refuse to take an oath to support America."

Thank you.

PROFESSOR BRAUCHER:  I think it is now time for the moderator to tell story. What Mr. Zoll said about people who will lie reminded me that people other than communists sometimes lie.  I think of the man from southern Indiana who told me he was a Democrat when they hunted them with bloodhounds.  He told me of the Republican leader -- I think it was in the election Cleveland lost -- who addressed his supporters at the celebration after a successful election.  Standing a little unsteadily on the band platform, he addressed the crowd: "In this election the Democrats lied, and they cheated, and they stole.  But with the help of the Lord and you loyal Republicans, we beat them at their own game."

        Our next speaker is an Associate Professor of Government in Harvard College.  He came to us from a neighboring institution which shall be nameless, and which has had some publicity recently arising out of a publication by one of its graduates named Buckley.  Mr. Bundy has been engaged in some public controversy with Mr. Buckley on educational matters, and he is known to many of you as the co-author -- with the late Secretary of War, Henry L. Stimson -- of a book called On Active Service.  More recently he has been compiling the papers of Secretary of State Acheson.  He tells me he is a Republican, but says -- as who does not -- that tonight he takes a middle ground. McGeorge Bundy.

PROFESSOR McGEORGE BUNDY:  I am going to try to take a middle position, but I wish that Mr. McWilliams could have pushed over a little bit to the left.  I can't share the view that loyalty oaths are a good thing, if anyone here does in fact hold that view; I'm not sure that I wholly share Mr. McWilliams' view that they are a wholly bad thing.  But I would ask Mr. Zoll -- if he feels that Roscoe Pound said the last word on this matter -- why is Roscoe Pound a "Reducator"?  Because he's on the list.

        Now it is important to observe here that academic freedom is in fact this kind of special subject that Mr. Zoll said it was -- that is to say, the freedoms of the teacher as a citizen are not different from the freedoms of any other citizen.  His freedom outside his classroom, his freedom outside his professional work, in what he does and what he chooses to talk about, these are problems which he faces like any other American.  His institution, like any other employer, faces the question as to whether those activities should or should not be regarded as relevant to his teaching.  The clear tradition of the free American university is that a citizen and his rights are a problem for the state and the law and not a problem for the private employer.  In other words, when a professor is out howling up or howling down any given cause, provided that he does so without total disrespect for his university, without pretending that he is somehow the spokesman for the corporate body, his freedom is that of the citizen in any walk of life and in any kind of activity.

        Now, the problem comes, and the privilege and right of academic freedom is asserted -- as Mr. Zoll quite rightly says -- in the classroom.  The classic statement on that point has the virtue that it was made when the danger was Germans and not communists, and made by a president of Harvard who was a conservative, not a liberal.  That classic statement is in the annual report of President Lowell for 1916-17.

        In teaching there are two sides.  One is the problem of the teaching by the professor in his chair on the subject, one is the problem of teaching by the professor in his chair off the subject.  As to teaching off your subject in the classroom, it is quite clear that this is an abuse of professional obligation.  A great many of us do it, but I hope that when we do it the students are smart enough to see through us, and I feel that when we do it, we make an error.  But the kind of error that we make is not an error which leads ordinarily to separation from the faculty; it is an error of tact, taste, and manners.  As Mr. Lowell put it, "Serious friction rarely arises . . . from this cause, and a word of caution would ordinarily be enough."  As he put it, "A professor of Greek . . . is not at liberty to harangue his pupils on the futility and harmfulness of vaccination; a professor of economics on Bacon's authorship of Shakespeare; or a professor of bacteriology on the tenets of the Catholic Church."  Now it occasionally happens, and Mr. Zoll is entirely right, that individual members of individual faculties disregard this obligation, and when they do so, in my view, they commit a serious offense against the manners and standards of their own profession.

        So far we have been considering the teacher's freedom. Now Mr. Zoll has proposed what is, I think, a fairly new dichotomy in the attack on academic freedom: All right, he says, worry about the truth off in your research closet, but don't bring it into the classroom.  That's what his argument amounts to.  And the trouble with that argument is that the student also must be exposed to this problem of the search for truth.  The student's freedom is also at stake here; his ability to judge and his ability to conduct a free inquiry of his own are being trained and tested, and a curriculum of fixed truth and indoctrination, in the view of the free university, simply cannot do that job.

        Let me point out here (and this is something that I think you will do well to remember; it is something to which we give perhaps less attention than we should) that we have made a great claim, those of us who teach.  And those who have given us the opportunity to teach have made a heavy bet.  This privilege or right of free teaching carries with it the most serious kind of obligation.  It is of course for that reason that those of us who are in this business choose to think of it not as a business and choose to think of ourselves not as hirelings but as members of a dangerous and challenging , profession.  And we are inclined to the belief that if we cannot be trusted, then the job of free teaching cannot even begin.  If anyone knows the whole truth about international politics, I wish he'd tell me. I want to know more about it.  But I want no man to judge for me what I must believe or say.

        Now I would hold that maintaining the balance of the faculty, in this and other respects, is not a job which faculty departments can always be trusted to do exclusively by themselves.  At the very least, it is proper that their recommendations should be critically considered by other judges, and, was you know, we  have here at Harvard an extremely elaborate, almost mystical system by which men are tested before they are offered permanent appointments to the faculty, and when and if you are translated to the rank of associate professor, you can be sure that a good many people have had an opportunity to throw blackballs at you.

        One major justification for this system of checks and balances in the hiring of professors is that this is a matter in which judgments of all kinds must enter in.  You can't get away from that; you must make a judgment of the man's ~character, and his conscientiousness, and his teaching skill, and his scholarship, and that nebulous something called his "promise for the future."  You have to make a judgment as to whether he has what you need to fill a gap, if you have a gap; you have to make a judgment as to how he stands, both in his special skill and in his basic social philosophy, in relation to the men you already have.  This business of hiring is a tough business and it requires a balanced judgment every time, and we must all recognize that fact; we faculty members must accept the responsibility of participating in that judgment.

        But once you have hired the man, the inquisition ends, and you set him free.  As long as he does his job, and maintains a basic standard of decency in his personal behavior, you don't fire him, and all of us know that there are a lot of people around universities who might not be there if they had to face the same test as each new member of the staff; there is some inefficiency in the principle of tenure.  Yet we stick to the principle, and one great reason why we do is that it is a great protection against inroads on academic freedom, the freedom of the teacher in his chair on his subject.

        Now let us turn to the unhappy student.  Why do we let these people come here and get exposed to all this dangerous doctrine?  They don't have to come, mind you; there are other institutions.  You can go around the corner in greater Boston and find places that have orthodox rules of every size and shape, ranging from the Socialist Workers, who run a little school downtown, all the way around to the right.  If you want orthodoxy in America, it has always been relatively easy to find it.

        Our assumption is a different one; it is that this University, by exposing you in class to a man speaking freely and responsibly to his subject from his chair, and out of class to anybody who blows into town, can tell you more about the process of thought, teach you more about responsible judgment, give you a deeper and more lasting adherence to freedom (since that is the word we're concerned with), than you can get in any other way.  It's dangerous, and we turn out a certain number of crackpots here at Harvard (but which one is the crackpot is often a debatable question).  We create some skeptics; some shallow faiths get undermined.  And in the teaching of subjects which can have these effects there is a very delicate problem of technique in the relationship of the teacher to the student; but I cannot take time to discuss that here.  The main thing is that even though we fully understand the dangers of free inquiry, we are persuaded that the student has a right to be exposed to it.  We do not see how we can train free and responsible minds in any other way.  Certainly we do not want the responsibility of forcing upon the student a single fixed doctrine.  Each of us in his own way is usually a missionary for the truths he thinks he has discovered, and we are all trying to make converts, in one sense.  But we don't want them to come without competition and free choice on the part of the student.

        Now let me say one last word.

PANEL DISCUSSION

MR. GOLD: Ladies and gentlemen of the radio audience, this is Richard Gold. On behalf of the Harvard Law School Forum I'd like to welcome you to the fifth of our regular programs of the year. . . .

        I would like to remind you that only the round table and question period of our forums are broadcast.  The prepared speeches of our panel begin at 8 p.m. and are not broadcast.

        And now I would like to present the moderator for tonight's program, Professor Robert Braucher of the Harvard Law School.  Professor Braucher.

PROFESSOR BRAUCHER:  Good evening.  We will begin by having each of the three speakers give very brief summaries of the main themes of the addresses which have not been heard by the radio listeners.  Mr. McWilliams.

MR. McWILLIAMS:  I think I might summarize what I said previously by simply saying that I was asked to speak about three questions.  My position about these questions, to repeat it, was essentially this -- that so far as freedom of speech on campuses is concerned, I can see very little necessity for any restrictions for freedom of speech upon campuses.  The only restrictions I would impose simply have to do with good order and arrangement of meetings, and so forth.  Otherwise, I believe in complete freedom of speech on campuses.

        With regard to matters of loyalty oaths, I am wholeheartedly opposed to any test devices and for a very specific reason -- namely, that I think that academic freedom is of great social value to a democracy.  If it is to have this value, it must be safeguarded.  If it is to be safeguarded, there must be a trustee appointed, so to speak, for the principle.  Faculties are the best trustees for this principle.  Faculties must be free if they are to safeguard this principle.  That is to say, faculties must be free if truth is to be used as a test of knowledge.  And because I believe that faculties are the best trustees of this principle, I am opposed to all attempts to impose somebody else's judgment upon the freedom and the independence of faculties.  I think faculties should be autonomous, subject to a general grant of power by way of the people to a legislature, to regents and down the line.  But generally speaking they should have complete autonomy.

MR. ZOLL:  Academic freedom is divided into two chief phases: one, freedom of research, and the other, freedom of the professors to teach as they see fit.  I think most of the people, even those that oppose academic freedom in the teaching phase, most thoroughly agree that a professor should have the right to conduct all the research that is possible.  And that is not a special freedom of the professor.  That is a freedom that everybody has.  We oppose academic freedom for four main reasons.

        One: it is wrong in principle.  Second: even if it was sound in principle, it is inimical to the best interests of the American people and America itself.  In the third place: academic freedom is undemocratic.  Hardly any group harps more on democracy, so called, than teachers, and here they are pumping for one of the things that is the most undemocratic that you can find.  They demand for themselves preferential treatment; they already have the freedoms that everybody else has. Why should they single themselves out for these special favors?  Fourthly: their special freedom interferes with the freedom of everyone else.  By freedom we mean the right of the person to do whatever he wishes provided it does not interfere with anybody else.  And in my opinion that is the reason and the only reason that governments and police are formed.  And by impinging their own thoughts of academic freedom, they detract from the parents' freedom to have their children educated in the way the children should be educated according to parents' likes.  And they hurt the students themselves.

        We're not talking merely about academic freedom at Harvard.  We are talking about the whole subject of teachers in colleges, in grade schools and high schools teaching as they see fit instead of in accordance with the principles of the trustees of those schools or of the dictates that are laid down by the people -- the general public -- who are the taxpayers who provide the funds and the children for the schools.

        That completes my summation.

PROFESSOR BRAUCHER: And now we'll hear from Mr. Bundy.

PROFESSOR BUNDY:  I have taken a position with regard to the three specific issues that Mr. McWilliams touched on: That loyalty oaths seldom do any good and may do great harm.  That outside speakers, except for clear-cut breaches of public discipline, act as an educational device; that they do more good than harm no matter what their political or social leanings may be.  I take the view that the curriculum and teaching in general are a problem which calls for the closest and most devoted attention by teachers and by the heads of institutions and in some cases by the public generally.

        The special freedom which is more specifically academic freedom is the freedom of the teacher from his chair to teach his subject truly as he knows it.  And this freedom, this right of his judgment, is and properly should be, in my view, certainly in the university, completely unlimited.  I think this is the great condition of effective thought, that free research and trammeled teaching are an impossible combination.  Here I disagree with Mr. Zoll.  Moreover, that the exposure of the student at the university level to this kind of ignorant-man thinking (to use Mr. Whitehead's great definition) is the best exercise in education.  I think that on professional grounds this freedom should not be limited up and down the educational ladder.  I did not perhaps make this plain enough in my initial remarks: that in schools, too, there are a professional fitness and competence, which should certainly be argued out and discussed with members of school committees, but which are dangerously limited when men begin to believe that they can teach mathematics or English or history better than those whose profession it is to master and communicate these subjects.

        Certainly there is a special problem of the relationship between the parent or the voter generally and the teacher in the public schools.  And this problem, I believe, can safely be left to an alert and active American democracy.  And I emphasize the words "alert'' and "active."

        More broadly, coming back to the university, I assert that the freedom of the teacher, and freedom of the student, are the absolute essential of our profession, of our purpose; that they require unending defense; and that they can be defended even in times as tense as these.

PROFESSOR BRAUCHER:  I think it's fair for the moderator to ask one question, and I am going to ask it twice in a little different form.  First, of Mr. Bundy.  I'll restrict it to the private institution to avoid the complications you spoke of.  What is your reaction to the publication of information regarding the political and public activities of members of university faculties in order that an informed public opinion may be brought to bear upon the members of the faculties?

PROFESSOR BRAUCHER:  I think now I'll ask something of the same question of Mr. Zoll and give him an opportunity to defend something which is after all in part his work.  One of the things that bothered me a little about his statement was that he seemed to limit his restriction of academic freedom (his advocacy of restriction) to what went on in the classroom -- what was done by way of indoctrinating the students.  And I found that a little difficult to reconcile with his activities in publishing the activities of teachers outside the classroom in the hope of influencing those activities.  It seemed to me that there is some little difficulty there.  I suppose there are a good many teachers who are on his list as participating in various organizations who are very careful not to do any of that type of thin; in the classroom.  I would like Mr. Zoll's comment on that thought.

MR. ZOLL:  It sounds like a very well loaded question, because we're the only ones who put out that list.  I can imagine from the start of it I knew something was coming.  I feel very definitely that people have a right to know to what communist-front organizations the professors belong.  I further believe that they have a right to belong to those organizations if they see fit.  But if they have done so there is no earthly reason why some organization that had the facilities -- and we have the names of every person whosoever belonged to a communist front of any sort -- we simply go to a lot of trouble and time to dig that out and list it in one group.  This time about Harvard and the action that Mr. Bundy speaks of taking.  I want you to know that no person's name is on any of those lists unless he has had that affiliation with that particular organization.  Now I will say to you (as I said at dinner), those lists are not conclusive by any stretch of the imagination.  There are some very bad people, probably some of them at Harvard, who have never belonged to a communist-front organization.  On the other hand there are some very good people -- that I know are as good Americans as Mr. Bundy or I -- whose names are on the list because they had the bad judgment to join a communist-front organization at some time in their career.  But I want you to notice this: There has been a whole lot less joining of communist-front organizations by the professors since we started publishing those lists.

PROFESSOR BRAUCHER:  Now I think it's appropriate to ask the speakers if they have any questions they would like to direct at each other. I think that, since Mr. McWilliams spoke first and has had no opportunity at rebuttal, we should ask him whether he has any questions he'd like to ask any of the other speakers.

PROFESSOR BRAUCHER:  Mr. Zoll.

MR. ZOLL:  That's a very good question.  I could spend the rest of the night answering that, but I'll try to confine it to this.  You said in your original speech that the faculty is the best judge of who should be on the faculty and who should remain on it.  I will say that the faculties have done a very bad job, because there are a lat of faculties around the country that simply reek with pro-communist doctrines - doctrinaires and pro-communist, pro-socialist people who are using the schools and the universities to build a new social order.  Now, as to whose judgment shall prevail, certainly not ours; ours is a very small, insignificant group which our enemies have made into a very powerful, important group because of the attacks they have made on us.  The only thing we are trying to do is to get the socialists and communists out of our schools and of the teaching profession.  And the people that are the best judges of that are the American people.  Our organization never does anything except tell the people in the local community that if their schools are teaching socialism, and they don't want it, to try to stop it.

MR. McWILLIAMS:  May I have a question, Mr. Moderator? 

PROFESSOR BRAUCHER:  Certainly.

MR. McWILLIAMS:  What are these faculties that are reeking with communist and socialists?  Let's have some names of institutions.  Let's have some names of faculty members.  I want to know.

PROFESSOR BRAUCHER:  I hope that the answer to that question will be given with all care and it will not be judged in the light of some of the foregoing remarks.  I see no reason why we should use this Forum as a place where rather loose comments are made about individuals not present and not able to defend themselves.

PROFESSOR BUNDY:  May I ask a question at this point? 

PROFESSOR BRAUCHER:  Yes. Mr. Bundy.

PROFESSOR BUNDY:  Mr. Zoll, is it or is it not true that a communist-front organization as you define it is simply something that any one of about ten different legislative committees may once have named?

MR. ZOLL:  That is correct.  The only ones we use are those that have been officially named by some legislative body, except for the Attorney General's list.

PROFESSOR BUNDY:  But in a great many of these cases yon are simply taking the uncontested evidence of people who happen to think that anybody with whom they disagree is a Red?

MR. ZOLL:  I see that you have never attended any of those hearings and you have not read the reports, because that's not the way they come to their conclusions.  They come to the conclusion as to whether or not an organization is a communist-front organization; then they list the people who have been connected with it and in what capacity they have been ~connected.  And may I have a question?  I've been the butt of all the questions here.  I want to ask a question.

PROFESSOR BRAUCHER:  I was just going to make sure you got your chance, Mr. Zoll.

MR. ZOLL:  I want to ask four questions because this whole thing is a matter of degree. I want to ask both Mr. McWilliams and Mr. Bundy these questions.  Do you favor communists teaching?  Do you favor socialists teaching?  Do you favor teaching communism?  Do you favor teaching socialism?

PROFESSOR BRAUCHER:  I think those are clear questions.  Mr. McWilliams, do you want to answer them in order?

MR. ZOLL:  Before Mr. Bundy answers, may I say this?  I have attended seven universities and I have yet to see a moderator in a classroom.  And I want to say that the people who are communists and pro-communists have no academic freedom.  They are following directions from Moscow, and they're part of an international conspiracy.  And that is not academic freedom.  I knew that you were going to have to say that you believed in them, because if you don't believe in allowing communists and socialists to teach, academic freedom is out the window immediately, and I tell you that I know from the volume of mail we receive from around the country that the American people are not in favor of communists teaching in the schools.

PROFESSOR BRAUCHER:  Mr. Bundy, would you like to answer the question.

        Now if I were asked whether I approve of the doctrines that half my colleagues teach in terms of political and social views -- no, half of them are Democrats. ( I think that is very unfortunate; I think we may make a convert or two this year.)  Half of them are Republicans. When they're teaching they're not teaching as Republicans or as Democrats.  Now socialists.  I say that a socialist -- and by this I mean a man who is not a communist -- a socialist, generally speaking, is the most violent form of anti-communist.  A socialist, where he is his own master, where he reaches his conclusions independently as an honorable man, where he teaches in the classroom by the same standards of honor and truth that the rest of us try to follow -- more power to him.  Now I'll add this that the most useful book in the study of capitalism and in the defense of capitalism that I've read in the last ten years is written by an avowed socialist.  It's that kind of interplay of opinion in which we believe and by which we hope to convince others.  Doctrinaire Stalinists are a different part of speech, in my view.

        Now as to teaching communism and teaching socialism in the sense of advocacy of views in the classroom by the faculty, I think that's most unfortunate, highly undesirable, and very rare.  I think that where you run into that kind of thing -- even when you do run into it -- I trust the maturity of the student body to deal with it.  Now, bringing in advocates, having them speak on the campus: I think that's a great addition.  It gives you a sense of the way the winds blow in the society into which you're coming.  The main question -- the main burden of Mr. Zoll's question is a creeping fear that somehow this is a hotbed of un-Americanism.  I'll make this last statement: No institution which I know in Massachusetts has contributed more and is contributing more now to the growth of American society and to its freedom than the free universities of this state.

PROFESSOR BRAUCHER:  Would you like to add any further comment on this, Mr. Zoll?

QUESTION PERIOD

PROFESSOR BRAUCHER:  I think it's time that we gave the audience a chance to ask some of their questions. Do we have a question from the floor?

QUESTIONER 1:  I'd like to address my question to Mr. Zoll.  Would you say that part of the job of the employer -- that is, the university officials -- is to hire and fire teachers?  What of a so-called Red-teacher law like the Ober Law, which would take that job away from the school offtcials and place it in the government?  I would like you to consider that in the light of the fact that you favor freedom of the individual -- the power of the individual over the power of the state.

MR. ZOLL:  I didn't hear the first thing that you said. What was it?

MR ZOLL:  Are you speaking about state universities now and not about Harvard and such private schools as that?

QUESTIONER 1:  Well, as I understand it, these laws would affect private instiitutions like Harvard as well as state universities.

PROFESSOR BRAUCHER:  I think the question needs clarification on that point.  It must be limited to the private institution, because for the state institution the state is the employer.

QUESTIONER 1:  I will limit it then to private institutions.

PROFESSOR BRAUCHER:  Next question.

QUESTIONER 2:   My question is addressed to Mr. Zoll.  If academic freedom means teaching what the employer does not want taught, is not then a university employer which requires its teachers, as Mr. Bundy said earlier, to teach only the truth in his field as he has found it -- is not such a university not subject to your criticism of such freedom?

MR. ZOLL:  If the university tells the professor what he shall and shall not teach, it's not academic freedom the way the professors use it.  And my point is that the only purpose of academic freedom, the discussion about it in the first place, is that it must give the right to the teacher to teach what the employer does nor want taught.  Because they do not need any special academic freedom to teach something that the employer does want taught.

PROFESSOR BRAUCHER:  Next question.

QUESTIONER 3:  This is addressed to Mr. Zoll.  At what stage, if we don't accept the college age, should an individual expose himself to the extremes of what the professors have to offer him and to what the other people in the faculty have to offer him, and be of age to make the proper decision?

QUESTIONER 3:  Well, let me ask you this: How do you define the middle unless you take the extremes?

MR. ZOLL:  There is no middle.  The middle, as you call it, is a line. On one side is right, on the other side is wrong.  And that middle, that middle of the road that you just mentioned and that Mr. McBundy talks about, is a barbed-wire fence (excuse me, I've got "Mc'ism"; Mr. Bundy knows that) -- is a barbed-wire fence of the concentration camp.  On one side is the freedom of America and on the other side is the totalitarian state.  There is no middle road.

PROFESSOR BRAUCHER:  If there is anybody that has a question to ask of anybody but Mr. Zoll, would he come forward and give Mr. Zoll a chance to clear his throat here?

QUESTIONER 4:  I have a question for Mr. McWilliams.  Mr. McWilliams, do you believe that we should allow teachers in our lower grades to subtly implant the ideas of communism in the minds of young children such as eight- to thirteen-year-olds, who can't discriminate, who can't tell the advantages of the economic and political systems, one from the other?:

MR. ZOLL:  May I try that question? 

PROFESSOR BRAUCHER:  Mr. McWilliams.

MR. McWILLIAMS:  The answer is: Of course not. 

QUESTIONER 4:  What limitations do you suggest?

MR. McWILLIAMS:  Well, I assume, of course, that he is going to teach objectively and not plant ideas in the minds of little children.

PROFESSOR BRAUCHER:  Is it your impression -- I'd just like to add a footnote to that question -- is it your impression, Mr. McWilliams, that that would be true of the ordinary avowed member of the communist party?

MR. McWILLIAMS:  Let me say this.  If a teacher, at whatever age level in a school system, is systematically indoctrinating students, this is a question which can be determined.  Now, if he's doing it, it's subject to censure.  Not because of anything he believes, but because of what he's doing in that classroom.  If he's not doing it, if he's teaching (and again I say the standard here to be used is: what is regarded by professional people in this field as objective?), and if he's not teaching objectively by this standard, then this is another question.  But you can't make the focus something that you think this individual believes.  This is the point.

PROFESSOR BRAUCHER:  Next question.

QUESTIONER 5:  I'd like to address my question to Mr. Zoll.  Do you believe that one of the primary functions of the student is the search for truth?  And if you do, bearing in mind that in 1776 the history of America was drenched with radicals, what do you believe about presenting radical opinions on American campuses today?

MR. ZOLL:  It was radical in the accepted sense of the term, in the true sense of the term.  I'd like to say in that connection that so-called liberals have stolen a lot of very good words.  The word "progressive" is not progressive.  The progressives seek to take us back to the feudal ages of the serf state, when the people were serfs under the state. And that is not progression; that is retrogression.  And the same thing applies to the word "liberal."  The word "liberal" comes from the same root as liberty or freedom, and the liberals are the ones that seek to take away freedom.  And the same thing applies to the word "radical" that you just used.  You asked two questions.  Two parts of your question.  I forget the other part.  What was the other part?

QUESTIONER 5:  Is one of the primary functions of the student the search for truth?

MR. ZOLL:  That's one of the primary functions.  But another part of the function is to learn to (or to get an education so that he can) live a happy, useful life; and I don't know that he's going to have time to do a lot of searching for what you call truth.  I do believe this very definitely: that there should be a university, the institute for advanced study -- at Harvard or some other place -- where people do nothing but search for truth.  But I think that most of the universities of the country are set up to try to give education to the people that go there.

PROFESSOR BRAUCHER:  Next question.

QUESTIONER 6:  My question is addressed to Mr. Bundy.  There were at the time of the framing of the Constitution, and there have been since, many discussions over the independent justices and judges in the American legal system, and especially the need for independence that they might follow the excellence of their profession; in other words, to make decisions without regard to pressures or without the threat of losing their position.  Isn't this freedom from pressure, this utter independence that is granted them that they might exercise their judgment more freely -- isn't this the essential element that is granted to professors by longevity and privilege?

PROFESSOR BRAUCHER:  Next question.

QUESTIONER 7:  I'd like to address my question to Mr. Zoll.  What are the values of freedom of research to the teacher if the teacher does not possess the means of full academic freedom through which to present the fruits of his research to the students?

PROFESSOR BRAUCHER:  Next question.

QUESTIONER 8:  I'd like to address a question to Mr. Zoll.  It's a loaded question; I'll admit that before I ask it.  It is based on the premise that not every professor in Harvard or in the six universities that you claim to have visited is a "Reducator."  You make a statement, I believe, that you have visited seven universities, probably on your current trip, and that you have never seen a class which had a moderator.  I would like to ask you if you have so little respect for the students in the American universities that you think them incapable of serving as their own moderators in choice between the conflicting opinions with which they are presented.

PROFESSOR BRAUCHER:  I think, before we have another question, this is probably an appropriate time for the moderator to meet the claim that there isn't any moderator at this meeting.  This is a diversion.  But I think it is appropriate for me to say that Mr. Bundy has called my attention to the fact that what I thought was a harmless, humorous story -- actually, I suppose, it was rather stupid of me not to see it myself -- was a charge that Mr. Zoll was engaged in some type of activity which was described in that stoty.  I did not intend it that way, and if I said that I now withdraw it.

MR. ZOLL:  You mean the one about the liar and everything?  Thank you , Mr. Bundy.

PROFESSOR BRAUCHER:  Next question.

QUESTIONER 9:  I'd like to ask Mr. Zoll the following question.  If you say that the men on your "Reducator" list should not be judged as communists simply because they joined communist-front organizations in the past, what was the point of printing their names in your list?

MR. ZOLL:  As I said a while ago, it was printed very carefully in the front of the "Reducator" list.  Have you ever seen that list, young man?

QUESTIONER 9:  No.

MR. ZOLL:  It says in there that this is not to be considered conclusive that they are pro-communist, and certainly it does not mean that they are members of the Communist Party.  It is merely indicative; because, as I said a while ago in my set talk or some time (maybe at dinner - I'm not sure), a person can belong to communist-front organizations and still not be un-American or not be pro-communist.  They've done it simply through naiveté.  But I do believe that any person belonging to as many as three communist-front organizations, who's a professor, is a little bit too naive to be a professor.  And that is why we listed those -- so that people might know.  And, incidentally, I think it has done some good.  Made some people unhappy and made some people happy.

PROFESSOR BRAUCHER:  Next question.

MR. ZOLL:  I propose to abolish academic freedom so that when any person stops teaching the way the people that hired him want him to teach he can get kicked out, and that is the opposite of academic freedom, And that's what I believe in.

MR. GOLD:  On behalf of the Forum, I would like to thank the speakers for their contributions to this excellent Forum.

        Thank you, and good night.