Cornell Alumni News - eCommons@Cornell - Cornell University

orandum, sent to Provost Dale Corson by
11 faculty members including Arts College
Dean Stuart M. Brown Jr. '37, PhD
'42, may have reflected best the faculty
sentiment on the incident. The memo
asked for guarantees by the administration
against any future Campus Patrol
seizure of literature and reflected real
fear of arbitrary police power to censor
free expression.
Student reaction was swift and vigorous.
It was no coincidence that the leaders
of the demonstrations were student
editors, who felt that the issue of the independence
of student publications from
university control and city supervision
was at stake. The keynote may have been
sounded by former Trojan Horse editor
James K. Moody '66 in his early reaction
to the magazine's confiscation. Said Moody,
who edited the controversial issue,
"This is the worst thing the university
could have done - to impose this kind of
censorship without even discussing it with
us first."
The crux of the original problem -
the campus handling of The Horse - was
a literal administrative leadership vacuum.
And this may have been an important
lesson learned by the university. Herson's
action came at a time when all the
university vice presidents and the university
President were in New York City for
a trustees' meeting. One member of the
Dean of Students Office, watching the
storm brewing with no officer at the helm
of the university, commented, "Why does
this all have to happen when everyone's
in New York?" From now on, it is a
good bet that there will always be one
vice president in Ithaca at all times.
Another equally important lesson, and
perhaps one that will have more profound
institutional effects is the new concern
engendered for proper administrative
handling of emergency situations in student
affairs. When a crisis has come up
in the past - and such crises have ranged
from sit-ins to food boycotts - there have
always been hurriedly-called meetings and
stopgap measures taken by mid-level administrators.
The need for new methods
of dealing with emergency situations
in student affairs is now evident. The Faculty
Committee on Student Affairs has
pledged itself to a thorough review of
such methods. Perhaps a new mandate for
the FCSA is needed which would give it
power to deal with such emergencies.
Moreover, this may be the proper time for
the incorporation of students on the committee.
Such a group might replace the
present structure of student government.
It would certainly provide a sound decision-making
body which would have
true power to enforce its reasoned conclusions.
The campus handling of the situation
may be seen as the original spark, but
even greater friction was created over
the issue of the privileged place of the
university and its traditional immunity
from the norms of outside society.
The campus irritation over the District
Attorney's actions had its roots in the
fear that the constraints of a more conformist
society would replace the cherished
traditional freedoms of an academic
atmosphere. Thaler's presence on the
campus may have heightened his political
image in the city of Ithaca, but at the expense
of badly strained town-gόwn relations.
As the campus saw the incident,
here was the perfect case of a city official
attempting to control and limit free expression
on a university campus.
Decision-making:
What to Decide?
Who should be the judge of standards
of decency on a university campus? Most
students and faculty would probably say
that no one has that right. The student
government body delegated with responsibility
to recognize legitimate student activities,
including publications, recognized
that The Horse "did violate commonly
accepted standards of decency and taste,"
which may serve as basis for prohibition
of the magazine's sale under the student
government mandate to the group. However,
the student committee, the Scheduling
& Coordinating Activities Review
Board (SCARB) has consistently rejected
the role of censor, and in The Horse case
it again refused to ban the magazine.
Said SCARB, whose decision was upheld
by its overseer, the Faculty Committee on
Student Affairs, "It was felt that in an
academic community, the individual is
sufficiently responsible to judge the value
and merits of the publication for himself."
While some feel that one campus group
should have the power to pass on the
taste of student publications, it is certainly
true that no one individual has the right
to say what is decent and what should be
read by others. Two individuals, the former
Safety Division head, and the District
Attorney felt they should use their
own judgment. The university official re-
jected the proper channels of student and
faculty judgment of publications. Only
after the fact of the magazine's seizure
were SCARB and the FCSA allowed to
use their delegated responsibility. Similarly,
the District Attorney, although acting
legally, should have realized that he
could not personally dictate taste on a
university campus. He should have attempted
to obtain an injunction before
creating a spectacle of stymied arrests on
the Straight steps.
Walter Wiggins, LLB '51, Ithaca attorney
retained by the Cornell chapter of the
American Civil Liberties Union to challenge
the injunction, flailed out against
"high button shoes decisions in the era of
the miniskirt." Others are not so certain
that The Horse would be warmly welcomed
by today's outside society. In this
unqualified critic's eyes, "The Selections
From a Journal By David Murray" would
be judged offensive by most readers,of
this magazine. But so would a thousand
and one other books now on the shelves
of bookstores across the country. Whether
the piece has "literary merit" is another
matter of taste. Some members of the
English department saw merit in the article
before it was published. The Sun reviewer,
on the other hand, doubted its
literary value.
But, literary merit aside, the crucial
question at stake is the apparent misunderstanding
or disregard for the special
needs of a university community,
where free expression is essential for an
atmosphere conducive to experimentation.
Only in such a free academic milieu
can innovation in literature, as in science,
be achieved.
I believe most students will agree that
the controversial number of The Trojan
Horse will not be a popular Mother's Day
gift. But most will also conclude that
different standards will separate the university
from the larger society if creativity
is to flourish here. This is not to say
that a university should permit license in
student and faculty expression or activities.
But universities must not be judged
by the same norms and conceptions of
community propriety which may guide a
small town.
A re-run of Berkeley? Only the first
act. One hopes there will be a happier
ending here than the present drama of
chaos in California colleges stemming
from the very outside political controls
which infuriated the Cornell campus.
One hopes that lessons have been
learned.
March 1967 25