The Trial Behind Closed Doors: When Harvard Stood Up for Free Speech

By Beezone

“Protectors of the law can do their “holy” work only in the dark”

Jacob Schwartz wrote from the Tombs Prison, September 5, 1918

 

Introduction

In the spring of 1921, a quiet but consequential confrontation unfolded within the governing halls of Harvard University. A small group of law professors, including the now-renowned Zechariah Chafee Jr. and Felix Frankfurter, found themselves under scrutiny for signing a petition requesting clemency in the controversial Abrams free speech case. What followed was a closed-door hearing by Harvard’s Board of Overseers—one that could have ended careers and reversed the course of academic freedom in America.

Remarkably, no public record of this hearing appeared at the time. It was not covered by the Harvard Graduates’ Magazine, nor discussed in the alumni bulletins. For over a decade, the details of this extraordinary defense of free speech and institutional integrity remained largely unknown.

Then, in 1934, a rare internal publication surfaced:
*A Fight for Freedom, 1921: Lest We Forget*
(Cambridge, Mass.: [The Council], 1934)

This modest booklet, quietly produced by members of the Harvard community, reconstructed the events of that pivotal spring. It was not written for public acclaim but as a deliberate act of institutional memory—an effort to preserve a moment when principle triumphed over pressure, and when the university stood its ground.

In a time when accusations of disloyalty and ideological subversion could ruin reputations, *A Fight for Freedom, 1921* documented a rare example of moral clarity within the university system. It showed how a university president—A. Lawrence Lowell—chose to defend his faculty not out of political convenience, but because of a deeper commitment to the values of open inquiry and legal fairness.

The booklet offers more than a history lesson—it provides a case study in leadership. It reminds us that academic freedom is not a given. It must be reaffirmed, often quietly and internally, by those with the authority to protect it. And it shows us that the defense of such freedom may not always be loud or celebrated—but it can be enduring.

This article revisits that moment, drawing directly from *A Fight for Freedom, 1921*, to shed light on one of Harvard’s most overlooked yet defining acts of institutional courage. In doing so, it invites reflection on the challenges we face today—and what it still means to defend the freedom to think.

The Trial Behind Closed Doors: When Harvard Stood Up for Free Speech
By Ed Reither

In the spring of 1921, a hearing was held behind closed doors at the Harvard Club in Boston. There was no press, no public announcement, and no transcript released afterward. And yet, what transpired in that room set a powerful precedent in the American university system—a precedent about how far institutions should go to protect their faculty from political backlash, and what kind of courage it takes to defend free speech in a climate of fear.

Seated in that room were giants. President A. Lawrence Lowell of Harvard presided. Present were the Dean of the Law School, Roscoe Pound, future Supreme Court Justice Felix Frankfurter, and the brilliant young legal scholar Zechariah Chafee Jr., already a national voice for civil liberties. But also in attendance were their accusers—among them George A. Fox, a respected member of the New York bar, accompanied by a U.S. Attorney and his assistants. The charge? A grave accusation of impropriety: the professors had signed a petition requesting clemency for Russian immigrants convicted in the now-infamous Abrams case, anarchists who had protested American military intervention in post-revolutionary Russia.

Their signatures, Mr. Fox claimed, had appeared under a misleading statement. He alleged that the professors had downplayed the defendants’ crimes and misrepresented the seriousness of their acts—conspiring to hinder war production during World War I. The heart of the case, however, was not accuracy but ideology. Fox and his anonymous backers—a shadow group of Harvard Law alumni—wanted Chafee and his colleagues removed. In their view, dissenting from the government’s prosecution of anarchists was disloyal, dangerous, and unbecoming of men trusted to shape the minds of America’s legal future.

It was, in effect, a soft purge—cloaked in procedural legitimacy, but animated by political fear.

What happened next is rarely taught in classrooms. President Lowell, acting as both university president and de facto defense counsel, stood his ground. He presented evidence that the petition the professors signed was not the one Fox cited. The charges were based on a circular misattributed to them—a mistake so egregious that Fox was forced to publicly withdraw his central claim.

It was a dramatic moment. Here was one of the country’s most powerful lawyers conceding a critical error before a room of judges, faculty, and federal officials. But Lowell did not press the advantage. Instead, he insisted that the remaining accusations—centered on Chafee’s writing—be considered seriously. This was not about winning an argument. It was about preserving the right to argue at all.

When Chafee took the floor, he delivered a measured but passionate defense. Yes, he had criticized the trial in his article. Yes, he had expressed that the punishment—twenty years for distributing leaflets—was extreme. But he had based his opinions on court records, trial transcripts, and subsequent review. He had made corrections when needed and stood ready to make more. What he would not retract was his conclusion: that freedom of speech includes unpopular or dissenting views, and that the Abrams defendants had been punished more for their ideology than their actions.

Sitting across from him, Mr. Ryan—the Assistant U.S. Attorney—had little rebuttal. When asked directly whether the trial had been fair, he hesitated. He declined to criticize a judge, but his silence echoed through the room.

Then Lowell spoke again. “Does anyone here believe the defendants were given a fair trial?” No one answered. The silence was its own verdict.

What Could Have Happened

Had Lowell yielded to pressure, Harvard might have become an early battleground for a different kind of university—one ruled not by scholarly independence but by the ideological oversight of donors and alumni. Chafee might have been removed, his reputation tarnished, and his pivotal work on Free Speech in the United States lost to history. Harvard might have cemented a precedent of quiet compliance rather than principled resistance.

But none of that happened. The committee ruled: no further action would be taken. And the moment passed into near-obscurity.

A Century Later: Then and Now

What makes this story so striking today is not just its historical stakes—it’s how closely it resembles debates we are having now.

Today’s campuses are once again stages for free speech conflicts: professors investigated or removed for unpopular opinions, donor influence determining faculty appointments, public pressure leading to self-censorship or resignation. The political alignments have shifted—now it is as often the right as the left demanding dismissals—but the structure of the conflict remains eerily familiar.

There are still anonymous groups behind the scenes. There are still powerful figures in boardrooms gauging risk versus principle. And there are still professors caught in the crossfire, wondering whether the classroom is a place for ideas or for conformity.

The real lesson of 1921 is not merely about Harvard, or law, or even the First Amendment. It’s about the character of institutions—and those who lead them.

President Lowell, no stranger to controversy himself, did not call for consensus or neutrality. He called for truth, integrity, and due process. He didn’t ask the Overseers to trust blindly—but to judge carefully, and to stand for principle even when the headlines, the donors, or the nation’s mood might demand otherwise.

Academic freedom is not preserved by policies alone. It is upheld by people who are willing to say, “No,” when the mob—or the board—says “Yes.”

That’s what happened at Harvard in May 1921.

And perhaps, as we find ourselves navigating a new century of ideological storms, it’s worth remembering that some of our most important defenses of liberty never made the front page.

They happened in quiet rooms.

Behind closed doors.

With no guarantee of applause.

Only the hope that someone, someday, would still be free to speak.

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Source:

A fight for freedom, 1921; lest we forget, Zecharish Chafee, Jr., 1885-1957

A fight for freedom, 1921; lest we forget, Zecharish Chafee, Jr., 1885-1957

A professor at Harvard Law School, Zechariah Chafee, Jr., was a major force behind the development and, ultimately, adoption by the Supreme Court of modern civil libertarian understandings of the freedom of speech and of the press that afforded wide scope for the liberty of speech, publication, and expression, even in times of war and concerning other threats to national security. Although already beginning to develop these speech-protective views alongside similarly inclined voices at the time, Chafee was spurred into transformative action by the aggressive restrictions on speech imposed during World War I by the Espionage and Sedition Acts.  From his perch at Harvard, Chafee not only wrote on the subject, but argued his points directly with Supreme Court Justices Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., and Louis D. Brandeis, persuading Holmes to change his views on the matter, and introducing arguments for free expression that informed the landmark Holmes dissent in Abrams v. United States (1919) and the Brandeis concurrence in Whitney v. California (1927).  The famed Holmes-Brandeis dissents in free speech cases laid the foundation of the modern constitutional doctrine of the freedom of speech, press, and expression.

Source: https://constitutioncenter.org/the-constitution/historic-document-library/detail/zechariah-chafee-jr-freedom-of-speech-the-new-republic-november-16-1918

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