In the Chicago Daily News of October 25, 1958, critic-columnist Jack Mabley attacked the University of Chicago for permitting the publication under its auspices of the Autumn issue of the Chicago Review. The gist of Mabley’s attack was that the Chicago Review had fallen into the hands of adolescents who were not interested in literature but only in scribbling dirty words on walls. Mabley concluded his article: “I don’t put the blame on the juveniles who wrote and edited the stuff, because they’re immature and irresponsible. But the University of Chicago publishes the magazine. The trustees should take a long hard look at what is being circulated under their sponsorship.”
Several weeks later, on November 29, the Chicago Maroon reported the resignation of the Review’s editor-in-chief, Irving Rosenthal, ascribing his resignation to personal reasons. The article reported the election of a new editor-in-chief, Hyung Woong Pak, and the selection of a completely new editorial board. In the article, Pak stated that the scheduled Winter issue of the Review would not appear due to a missed deadline at the University Press.
At the December 2 meeting of the Student Government of the University the question of the Review was raised. It was suggested that the old editorial board actually resigned in protest to a demand by the University Administration that writing by certain named authors be excluded from the Winter issue. It was further alleged that the missed deadline was not the principle [sic] reason for the failure of the Winter issue to appear.
Student Government formed a special committee to investigate these allegations. The committee consisted of Diana Eagon, Law; Jack Eagon, Physical Science; Phillp Epstein (Chairman), College; Leon Kass (non-government member), Medicine; Jack Michaelsen, Business; Michael Padnos, Law; Gary Stoll (non-government member) Law.
In making this investigation, the committee sought to answer three questions:
- What actions, if any, did the University take concerning the publication of the Winter issue of the Chicago Review?
- What were the reasons for these actions ?
- What fair evaluation can be made of the actions and their motivations ?
It is the conclusion of this committee that there was action taken by the University Administration. The resignation of the editors and the failure of the Winter issue to appear were both due to pressure imposed by the Administration of the editors. The University threatened to prevent publication of the Review if the editors attempted to print manuscripts which might cause further adverse press comment of the University. The committee further concludes that the principal reason the University imposed pressure on the editors was that the University itself was under pressure from persons financially interested in the University to prevent the appearance of another such issue.
Before evaluating these actions and motivations, it is necessary to review all the pertinent facts which led this committee to the above conclusions. These facts were gathered in a series of interviews with all persons who were concerned with the Review: the old and new editors, old and new members of the editorial board, University Press personnel, the Comptroller of the University, members of the Faculty Advisory Board of the Review, Deans Wilt of the Humanities and Streeter of the College (whose budgets supplied the University’s subsidy to the Review), and Chancellor Kimpton.
- WHAT ACTION WAS TAKEN?
Determination of why the editors of the Review resigned and why the Winter issue did not appear were the first tasks which faces the committee. Interviews with Irving Rosenthal the editor-in-chief who had resigned, and with other editors and staff members supplied the information.
The resignation resulted from a demand on the part of the “Administration” that the Winter issue of the Review be “innocuous”, i.e., free of obscene words. Specifically, Dean Wilt had informed Rosenthal that material by Kerouac, Dahlberg and Burroughs which had already been accepted for publication in the Winter issue could not appear. Rosenthal told Wilt and Streeter that he personally could not comply with these conditions, but that he would consult the staff of the Review. On November 18, Rosenthal outlined these conditions to his staff and asked if anyone could, in good conscience, accept the editorship under these circumstances. Only Hyung Woong Pak felt that he could comply. Rosenthal then resigned, and Pak was thereupon elected editor-in-chief. The resignations of the other editors followed. The planned Winter issue abandoned, a substitute Winter issue did not appear because Pak and his new staff found it physically impossible to select and edit a completely new set of manuscripts..
To establish the actual measures taken by the University, the committee undertook an inquiry into a series of meetings at which Dean Wilt communicated the above conditions to Rosenthal. These meetings, held approximately every second day, ran from November 3 through November 17. Dean Streeter was also present at the meetings on November 17. The following account, given by Rosenthal, was later and separately substantiated by Wilt and Streeter.
At one of the first meetings, Will told Rosenthal that unless some changes were made in the proposed content of the Winter issue, he didn’t know “but what the money might be cut off from the Review.” At the next meeting Wilt said that “the financial authorities of the University”[2] had definitely assured him that unless the Winter issue was “completely innocuous” the University would withdraw its financial support from the magazine. Although “completely innocuous” was Wilt’s phrase to Rosenthal, and not necessarily used by the financial authorities” to Wilt, Wilt made it clear that the financial authorities’ concern was over the “gamy” writing which had appeared in the Autumn issue, and which they feared Rosenthal planned to repeat in the Winter issue. There was some discussion of asterisking out the four-letter-words in the manuscripts, but this idea was rejected by both Wilt and Rosenthal and “puerile”.
At the subsequent meeting Wilt told Rosenthal that Burroughs, Kerouac, and the San Francisco poets generally could not appear in the Winter issue. However, he expressed his belief that all forbidden manuscripts which had been accepted could appear, singly, in later issues. Wilt offered to inquire whether a not could appear in the revised Winter issue, announcing that the manuscripts in question had been accepted but could not appear at this time.
Not until a later meeting was Rosenthal told that Dahlberg’s manuscript also could not appear. However, Wilt stated that he had obtained permission for the inclusion of the note. It was made clear to the committee, but perhaps not to Rosenthal, that the “financial authorities” did not object to these writers specifically. Rather they objected to their use—or anyone else’s use—of obscene words in (at least) the Winter issue.
On November 17, at the last meeting held between Rosenthal and the Deans, the following possibilities were outlined:
- Rosenthal could attempt the publication of the planned Winter issue, most likely incurring the withdrawal of the (usual) financial support of the University.
- Rosenthal could change the proposed issue to meet the prescribed conditions.
- Rosenthal could resign, leaving the decision to the rest of the staff and/or his successor.
Wilt and Streeter advised the second course, and strongly urged Rosenthal not to take the first course, in the interest of preserving the magazine. Rosenthal said that for both moral and practical reasons, he could not edit a new “innocuous” issue for the Winter of 1959. He did not agree to present the alternative to his staff, with the result as has been reported: Pak was elected editor, and all the other editors resigned in protest to the Administration’s actions.
From the information given this committee by Dean Wilt, this committee has concluded that the University deprived the editors of the freedom of independent editorial judgement traditionally enjoyed by the Chicago Review; further, that the editors resigned because they could not, in good conscience, accept dictation from the University as to the content of the magazine.
III. EVALUATION AND CONCLUSION
In what way were the influences that were brought to bear upon the student editors wrong, if indeed they were wrong ? In this final analysis, has the University failed to serve its own best interests by suppressing the opinions of these students? It was suggested early in the course of our investigation that the following three concepts should be called relevant:
- Freedom of the Press: that guarantee of law which insures that no interference shall be made with the publisher in his right to publish what material he chooses. The University is the owner and publisher of the Chicago Review; therefore, the University was certainly within all legal rights in appointing whom it chose as editor, and publishing what it chose in the magazine. For this reason, the committee feels that this issue is not relevant to the suppression of the Review.
- Academic Freedom: that freedom of action which the University guarantees its faculty, as faculty members, in their scholarly pursuits and private lives. This freedom is held to extend, perhaps to a more limited extent, to the student body. The committee feels that this concept is partly relevant to the case of the Review. The editors had indeed enjoyed a tradition of the non-interference with their literary judgments, and it is arguable that this tradition lies within the scope of academic freedom. However, it may be argued that literary quality is a criterion upon which the student editors, as students, should be judged. Thus the University might feel that it had a duty to evaluate the work of the students even to the point of forbidding publication in extreme cases. Nevertheless, those members of the Humanities and College Faculties who comprise the Faculty Board—not the “financial authorities” in the Administration—should be the ones to make such decisions. It may be recalled that the Faculty Board was in favor of permitting the publication of the Winter issue as originally planned.
- Intellectual Atmosphere: this concept is at once the most difficult to define and the most relevant in the view of the committee. We believe that the Administration and Faculty have an obligation, as our teachers, not only to permit publication of student work, but to insist vehemently on the independence of student judgments from outside intimidation and threats. In working to encourage the intellectual growth of its students the University must provide the atmosphere for new ideas to be tried, new views to be expounded. It is this intellectual atmosphere which we feel is most seriously challenged by the Chancellor’s capitulation to the whim of the local columnist.
It is especially when new views run counter to those of the society that the University should act most vigorously to protect its members from the pressures to conform. This is not to say that the students should ignore the pressures of society, but except as these pressures act on the very consciences of the students themselves, they ought to act at all.
What is the purpose of supporting a student-run publication if not to give the students a chance to exercise their literary judgements and abilities? If the magazine is to reflect the “literary taste and judgment of the Humanities Faculty” then it should be a Humanities Faculty publication. If the Review is properly to be called a student publication then it should reflect the judgement of the Humanities Faculty only to the extent that the student editors themselves feel that judgement to be valid.
In our University there is one man who has the ultimate responsibility for protecting the students’ interests: Chancellor Kimpton. It is to him that we must look for reassurance that we have not actually lost the atmosphere of freedom that should surround our activities. The committee feels that Chancellor Kimpton should in word and deed reaffirm the principle that the University will encourage and protect its members in their exercise of the right of free intellectual inquiry and expression.
Notes:
[1] The committee investigated some unusual events involving the manuscripts for the planned Winter issue and the University Press. These occurred concurrently with the series of meetings between Dean Wilt and Editor Rosenthal described infra. Since the committee could prove no relation between these events and the Wilt-Rosenthal meetings, and since these events were inconclusive, we include an account of the incidents at the Press in Appendix B.
[2] “Financial Authorities of the University” was the phrase Dean Wilt used in describing to the committee the person(s) in the Administration with whom he dealt in this matter. He was not at liberty to be more specific about their identity.