The Harvard Law Record - HLS's independent source for news and information since 1946 - announced, on January 22, a reduction in its print output. In the coming weeks, it will switch to a biweekly publishing schedule. The decision, editors explained, was caused by financial constraints and the more expedient alternative of delivering news via email, among other factors. There was, however, one aspect that could not be left out of the equation:

[T]he replacement of the Record as the school's official mailout with the glossier, less critical eye of the Harvard Law School Bulletin - an issue pointed to by Harvard Board of Overseers candidate Harvey Silverglate '67 as a manifestation of the "corporate" university - has reduced dependence on the paper among alumni. Still, we believe that independent, student produced content is a necessary, particularly at an institution that sometimes falls short of embodying the lofty principles it teaches in its classrooms. Demand for the Record has never been higher, it's just that this demand is not appearing in print form. We are seeing our highest traffic totals ever on the hlrecord.org website. ("Change is coming to the Record, too," January 22, 2009)

We couldn't agree more that student-produced alumni outreach efforts has always been - and will continue to be - pivotal to the proper function of the university. It's a big reason why it's a central part of Harvey's candidacy. And while it's unfortunate that the glossy, in-house Bulletin has dampened the demand the Record's print edition, we look forward to the innovative ideas that HLS students will provide on the Record's website.

For decades, Harvey Silverglate has been passionately engaged with American universities, especially Harvard, and he has thought clearly and written wittily about their responsibility to promote free inquiry and the exchange of ideas. With Harvard spending much of its energy either figuring out how to spend its fortune or figuring out how to recover from its spending binges, it’s important to have someone on board to remind it of its mission. I can’t think of a better advocate for intellectual integrity in the university than Silverglate. Harvey for Harvard!

-- Steven Pinker, Johnstone Family Professor of Psychology at Harvard, author of The Stuff of Thought (2007), and Harvard Graduate School of Arts and Sciences '79 (Experimental Psychology)

I first encountered Harvey Silverglate when I reviewed The Shadow University: The Betrayal of Liberty on America's Campuses, the outstanding clarion call that he and Alan Charles Kors published in 1998 about the insidious encroachments on liberty by the same academics who sometimes fancy themselves to be liberty's guardians. I soon learned that, as the book suggested, Harvey is one of the tiny number of civil libertarians who are outraged by censorship and oppression whether it comes from the Right or from the Left. Not only college students but criminal defendants both famous and unknown and liberal and conservative targets of McCarthyite harassment and oppression have all found in Harvey a formidable champion whose passion is powered by an oustanding intellect and outstanding legal skills. I can think of no better person to provide an antidote to the grave state of affairs that Harvey and Alan summarized so well in the introduction to their book: "In a nation whose future depends upon an education in freedom, colleges and universities are teaching the values of censorship, self-censorship, and self-righteous abuse of power. . . . Our students are being educated in so-called group rights and responsibilities, and in double standards to redress partisan definitions of historical wrongs. . . . (The norm is) intolerance of dissent from regnant political orthodoxy (and) the belief that universities not only may but should suspend the rights of some in order to transform students, the culture, and the nation according to their ideological vision and desire."

-- Stuart Taylor, Jr., National Journal columnist, Newsweek contributing editor and Harvard Law School '77

Dear Harvey,

I am terribly sorry about this, but I must offer my sincere and enthusiastic endorsement to your campaign for a position on Harvard's Board of Overseers. Since I am offering this endorsement (1) on the pages of an NRO blog; (2) as a conservative; and (3) not just as conservative but as a religious conservative (the horror!), I fear that my endorsement could harm your candidacy at a leftist stronghold like Harvard. However, your character and consistent defense of civil liberties for all citizens compel me to write. Your tireless efforts in your own private practice and as co-founder of perhaps the only truly non-partisan (in the sense that its only agenda is liberty) civil-liberties organization in the United States speak for themselves.  

The inferior branch of our land-based military services has a nice saying: "No better friend; no worse enemy." When it comes to your life's work, those who seek to advance liberty have no better friend — and those who oppress our fellow citizens have no worse enemy — than Harvey Silverglate.

I just hope that your long and distinguished record of advocacy for various liberal policy positions can insulate you from the negative effects of this conservative's endorsement, or the endorsement of any other conservative. Harvard — a place that I love — would be all the better for your leadership.  And Harvard's students — including conservative students — would breathe freer air with you on the board.

-- David French, Senior Legal Counsel at the Alliance Defense Fund and the Director of its Center for Academic Freedom. He graduated Harvard Law School in 1994.