Word: pi
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...quite rightly takes up the issue of the celebrated Pi Eta Club newsletter, which depicted women in almost the lewdest, most sexist language imaginable, as a case study in which free speech must be extended to even the most offensive of communications. He goes on at length about why he issued a strong public denunciation of the letter, and how this denunciation, rather than inhibiting free speech, is part and parcel of the market-place of ideas to which free speech is supposed to contribute...
...good. But why does Bok stop, both rhetorically and in actions, at this ugly incident? At the beginning of his letter, he mentions in passing several other examples of violations of free speech at Harvard, but with the exception of the Pi Eta incident, he fails to return to them. No harsh words are reserved for those Jewish students who disrupted a speech last year by a representative of the P.L.O. nor does Bok directly condemn members of the Black Law Students Association who did not allow Jewish students to question a P.L.O. official at a symposium of their...
...local example of such communications was the letter sent last year by members of the Harvard Pi Eta Club, which referred to women in terms that can be fairly described as lewd, insulting, and grossly demeaning. The same issue can arise in the case of speeches or communications that are patently anti-Semitic or vulgarly abusive toward people because of their sexual orientation. Although such statements are deplorable, they are presumed to be protected under the Constitution and should be equally so on the campus as well. Why? The critical question is. Whom will we trust to censor communications...
...free speech is so important, why did you and other Harvard officials issue such strong public denunciations of the Pi Eta letter...
...inhibiting effects on students. Nevertheless, this possibility is not sufficient to outweigh he need for officials to speak out on matters of significance to the community--provided, of course, that they take no action to penalize the speech of others. No such action was taken against members of the Pi Eta Club for having written the letter, and no such action should have been taken...