Word: free
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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...fundamental reason is that for Harvard to take the course you recommend would be to repudiate the very essense of what Harvard stands for--the search for truth by a free and uncoerced body of students and teachers. And it would be to make a mockery of a long tradition of Harvard freedom for both its students and its faculties...
...Harvard believes in the "free trade in ideas" of Justice Holmes--a graduate of 1861--which is no more than saying that she believes in the principles of Milton's "Arcopagitica" (1644), of Jefferson's First Inaugural (1801), and of Mill's "Essay on Liberty" (1859). She thinks that repression is not wise or workable under our system, that wide latitude for conflicting views affords the best chance for good government, and that in suppression usually lies the greater peril. Harvard is not afraid of freedom, and believes adherence to this principle to be fundamental for our universities...
...believes that wide limits for free expression by professors are in the interest of her students as well as the teachers. The teachers have rights as citizens to speak and write as men of independence; the students also have their rights to be taught by men of independent mind...
...require six months to destroy the morale of both our teachers and students, and thereby our usefulness to the country. I think one need do no more than state the necessary implications of what you ask to demonstrate that nothing could be more alien to the principle of free expression that Harvard stands...
...There will be no apparatus of inquiry and "closer watch." The harm done by the effort necessary to discover even a single clan-destine Party Member would outweigh any possible benefit. To go beyond that by searching for "reasonable grounds" concerning "loyalty," would still more disrupt Harvard or any free university...