April 2001
March 23, 2001
Two Pulitzer Prize-winning former managing editors of the Harvard
Crimson, New York Times columnist Anthony Lewis (Class of 1948)
and author David Halberstam (Class of ’55) rebuke the newspaper for refusing
to run the advertisement from David Horowitz opposing slavery reparations:
“We noted with surprise that you rejected the ad: surprise because we
thought The Crimson stood for freedom of the press and courage in exercising
that right. We understand that a newspaper is not compelled to print all
advertising submitted. It is entitled to its own judgement on the suitability
of the ad for its audience. But in this case the judgement appears to have
been that the audience was too tender to deal with what to many would have
been an offensive political argument. We think that notion is false to
the ideals of The Crimson and of free speech. If Harvard students cannot
stand hearing an unpopular political argument, we are in a bad way. But
we are utterly confident that they are capable of doing so. You missed
an opportunity–an easy opportunity–to show what freedom of speech is
all about”.
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