page_title: A. Lawrence Lowell
section_title: Academic freedom
hierarchical_section_title: A. Lawrence Lowell / Harvard University / Academic freedom
caption_attribution_description: English: Lawrence Lowell Harvard University By John A Wilson
context_page_description: Abbott Lawrence Lowell was a U.S. educator and legal scholar. He was President of Harvard University from 1909 to 1933.
  With an "aristocratic sense of mission and self-certainty," Lowell cut a large figure in American education and to some extent in public life as well. At Harvard University his years as president saw a remarkable expansion of the university in terms of the size of its physical infrastructure, its student body, and its endowment. His reform of undergraduate education established the system of majoring in a particular discipline that became the standard in American education.
  His progressive reputation in education derived principally from his insistence on integrating social classes at Harvard and preventing students of wealthy backgrounds from living apart from their less wealthy peers, a position for which he was sometimes termed "a traitor to his class." He also recognized the university's obligation to serve the surrounding community, particularly in making college courses available to and putting college degrees within the reach of local schoolteachers. He took the progressive side on certain public issues as well.
context_section_description: During World War I, when American universities were under great pressure to demonstrate their unambiguous commitment to the American war effort, Harvard under Lowell established a distinguished record of independence. The New York Times later wrote that Lowell "steadfastly refused to accede to the demands of the hysterically patriotic that German subjects be dropped from the curriculum." When a Harvard alumnus threatened to withdraw a ten-million-dollar bequest unless a certain pro-German professor was dismissed, the Harvard Corporation refused to submit to his demand. Lowell's uncompromising statement in support of academic freedom was a landmark event at a time when other universities were demanding compliant behavior from their faculty.
  He similarly defended a student's anti-German poem with a statement of principle in defense of free speech within the academic community. In 1915, Kuno Meyer a professor at the University of Berlin who was considering a temporary Harvard appointment, protested the publication of an undergraduate's satirical poem in a college magazine. Lowell replied that freedom of speech played a different role in American universities than in their German counterparts. "We have endeavored to maintain the right of all members of the university to express themselves freely, without censorship or supervision by the authorities of the university, and have applied this rule impartially to those who favor Germany and those who favor the Allies—to the former in the face of a pretty violent agitation for muzzling professors by alumni of the university and outsiders."
  During the Boston police strike of 1919, Lowell called upon Harvard's students "to help in any way ... to maintain order and support the laws of the Commonwealth" by providing security in place of the strikers. Harold Laski, a tutor in political science of socialist views and still too young to have a scholarly reputation, supported the strikers. Members of the University's Board of Overseers began to talk of dismissing Laski, which provoked a threat from Lowell: "If the Overseers ask for Laski's resignation they will get mine!"
  Harvard's Professor Zechariah Chafee paid tribute to Lowell's defense of Harvard's teachers and students by dedicating his 1920 study Free Speech in the United States to Lowell, "whose wisdom and courage in the face of uneasy fears and stormy criticism made it unmistakably plain that so long as he was president no one could breathe the air of Harvard and not be free."
caption: Lowell by John A. Wilson
exif: {"Image Make": "NIKON CORPORATION", "Image Model": "NIKON D200", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "72", "Image YResolution": "72", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "QuickTime 7.7.1", "Image DateTime": "2012:12:20 08:54:41", "Image HostComputer": "Mac OS X 10.8.2", "Image YCbCrPositioning": "Centered", "Image ExifOffset": "256", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "616", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "6745", "Thumbnail YCbCrPositioning": "Centered", "EXIF ExposureTime": "1/45", "EXIF FNumber": "18", "EXIF ExposureProgram": "Aperture Priority", "EXIF ISOSpeedRatings": "1600", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0220", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2012:07:04 08:35:22", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2012:07:04 08:35:22", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "0", "EXIF MaxApertureValue": "9/2", "EXIF MeteringMode": "CenterWeightedAverage", "EXIF LightSource": "Unknown", "EXIF Flash": "Flash did not fire", "EXIF FocalLength": "62", "EXIF SensingMethod": "One-chip color area"}