In Memoriam: Pax et Lux
November 3, 2006
The editorial below originally appeared in the Observer on September 8, 1969. We are grateful to Elena Mead, who, working with LGBT Center Director Dona Yarbrough, uncovered this and other historic articles as part of the Tufts Queer History Project, available at http://ase.tufts.edu/lgbt/tqhp/.
“I AM A HOMOSEXUAL!” the man on the right (above) declared at Commencement last June. And as if to prove his point about the torment forced on him because he chose to love “differently,” the podium microphone went dead. For the first time since Chairman of the Trustees Robert W. Meserve had done it at the 1968 Senior dinner, the Tufts administration censored a student speaker.
In fact, the administration’s disruption of Commencement was the only major disruption faced by Tufts last year. It was more than a violation of the principle of free speech: the faith and respect with which Tufts students used to regard their Administration was perhaps irreparably shattered.
Of course, there had been some student unhappiness even before Commencement itself on June 1. For example, some seniors and other students were upset that they had been prevented from learning just who their university had chosen to honor with its symbolic degrees. In the past, names of honorary degree recipients were released in time for the last issue of the campus newspaper. This was not to be so in 1969, much to the puzzlement of many.
[…]
It was a very nice day. Except for the war, the starvation in America, the repression by Nixon’s henchmen, the draft, and the continuing destruction of the world’s ecology by American industry, you’d almost have thought it was spring. Some graduating seniors, however, realized that this would be a somewhat ludicrous notion.
Hence they requested, “through proper channels,” to address the graduation day assemblage in order to air their “frustration with this empty ceremony and with this university” so that they could better “express the hope that this university will fulfill its potential as a powerful agent of social betterment.”
They were refused a spot on the commencement program. It was not procedurally “in order.” However, Dean Schmidt told the concerned students that Tufts would allow them to express their moral feelings, as long as they did it well before the only truly important event of the day: the ritualistic and disciplined niceties. The speech was made to the sparse gathering 45 minutes before the scheduled start of commencement.
Not surprisingly, they were roundly booed by some of the few parents and alumni present who honestly did believe that it was spring.
The Administration, however, had more indicative things in mind.
Very soon after Commencement began, a rather insistent voice was heard from the robed masses, crying, “I am the class poet and I wish to read a poem.” It seems that this kook really was the senior class poet. Only thing was that no one had told him about it. According to him, “they were afraid I might make an ‘obscene’ poem or something.” Again, the mindless fear. And again, the disgusting over-reaction.
The poet made his way to the platform. He had a strikingly personal message to make, and no amount of coercion by the men on the platform was going to stop him.
He made his statement, and the microphone went dead. It was incredible; many there simply could not believe that this was really happening… not at Tufts!
The poet yelled his message into the bedlam of insulted parents, glaring cops, and dumbfounded graduates. And then he left, applauded by many of his classmates, but by none of their elders.
Later on his experience was to be repeated when one other graduate, after receiving his degree, stopped to stand behind the microphone. A few words could be heard, at least enough for the Administration to realize that it was about to be condemned. The suppression of speech was quickly initiated again as the microphone went dead.
Still, some of this second message got through. It was something like, “The only real sincere thing that I’ve heard all day was said earlier by the official class poet. And what do you do? You turn off the microphone so nobody can hear a stinking, rotten word of what he said!”
The applause was loud and prolonged, coming even from some who had only minutes earlier hissed the poet.
The Administration is apparently now saying that the whole thing was a mistake; signals got crossed on the platform that day, they say. In fact, we have been told that the President has said that he didn’t even know that the microphones had been turned off. Then what were all those people yelling about that day?
We would welcome a defense if not ant apology, from the Administration. One is owed to the entire community.
The disruption of academic value—so denounced by administrators when allegedly perpetrated by student “rebels”—was epitomized on June 1, 1969, by the Administration of Tufts University.
The students who removed their academic robes in protest to a stagnant institution were acting as symbols for a university which had forfeited its right to wrap itself in the garb of academic honor.