Word: huac
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...number of groups, including the American Civil Liberties Union, saw the investigation as something more serious than a carnival. What angered them most of all was that HUAC had obtained membership lists of student anti-war groups by serving the administrations of Berkeley, Stanford, and the University of Michigan with subpoenas. The ACLU, to prevent a recurrence of these hearings, wrote letters to the Presidents of 900 American colleges, urging them to withhold the membership lists of political organizations from HUAC. President Grayson Kirk of Columbia University announced that HUAC would have to take the university into court in order...
...Harvard, Vern Countryman and several other Law School professors asked the University to take all possible legal steps to keep the lists from falling into HUAC's hands. Gilbert Gale '69, head of an ad hoc committee to abolish HUAC, wrote a letter to President Pusey asking him to make a public statement on the University's policy toward a possible subpoena...
...March 6 response to Gale's letter, Pusey said that the University would not commit itself to non-compliance with a HUAC subpoena before such a subpoena was actually served. While the Young Republicans commended Pusey for his handling of the matter, other individuals and organizations were not so pleased. The Harvard Undergraduate Council, for example, urged the Corporation to reconsider Pusey's decision...
Pusey's reply did not mean that the University would necessarily surrender membership lists. His response to Senator McCarthy in the early fifties shows he does not lack the courage to stand up to HUAC. In the present case Pusey was unwilling to commit the University until he saw the actual terms of the subpoena. Pusey was probably trying to avoid unnecessary publicity. Also, he may have been concerned with possible repercussions on Harvard's relations with other government committees and agencies...
Pusey's critics reply that academic freedom is seriously threatened by HUAC's actions and that Harvard has a unique responsibility in the academic world to lead the opposition. The critics also fear that HUAC may wait until the summer to issue the subpoena when students would not be present to protest. This tactic was used successfully against Berkeley, Stanford, and Michigan...