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".