Harvard's Secret Court: The Savage 1920 Purge of Campus Homosexuals
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | 4.60 (568 Votes) |
| Asin | : | 0312322720 |
| Format Type | : | paperback |
| Number of Pages | : | 304 Pages |
| Publish Date | : | 2016-06-26 |
| Language | : | English |
DESCRIPTION:
Good information, tedious style Higby The book contains important information about a gay tribunal at Harvard that led to several suicides. A difficult read because the writing is passionless and repetitive. The author speculates too much, hitting the possible motives of every incident from every possible angle in a way that becomes boring and pedantic. I would have liked more background on the gay history of the period rather than the final, long essay on homosexuality which is a rehash of everything you already know.. Interesting history S. N. Schwarz Very interesting book! Was delivered EARLY!. A reader from Boston, MA said A Vengeful Harvard College Eats Its Own. William Wright has revealed an astonishing and gruesomely fascinating episode in American history in this investigation of a roundup of students at Harvard College who were homosexual or indulging in homosexuality. Following the suicide of a student who had been left by his Boston cafe-owning lover, a secret court was established whose major governing influence was the college president, the beloved A. Lawrence Lowell, better known for his part in sending Sacco and Vanzetti to the electric chair, changing the acceptance procedure to ensure that the number of Jews admitted to the college was limited, and attempting
After the suicide of Cyril Wilcox, a gay student, Harvard's president authorized a "Secret Court" of deans and scholars to investigate the sexual life of a group of students who often hosted sailors, drag queens and "boys from town" in covert dorm-room dance parties. From Publishers Weekly In this repetitive and somewhat melodramatic narrative, prolific biographer Wright (Born That Way, etc.) tells the astonishing story of a group of Harvard students who were expelled in 1920 for homosexual conduct. All rights reserved. Wright's painstaking attention to each student interrogation, family history and Secret Court administrator, along with his distracting authorial commentary
The note he left behind revealed his secret life as part of a circle of (cut "young") homosexual students.The resulting witch hunt and the lives it cost remains one of the most shameful episodes in the history of America's premiere university. In 2002, a researcher for The Harvard Crimson came across a restricted archive labeled "Secret Court Files, 1920." The mystery he uncovered involved a tragic scandal in which Harvard University secretly put a dozen students on trial for homosexuality and then systematically and persistently tried to ruin their lives.In May of 1920,Cyril Wilcox, a freshman suspended from Harvard, was found sprawled dead on his bed, his room filled with gas--a suicide. Harvard's Secret Court is a deeply moving indictment of the human toll of intolerance and the horrors of injustice that can result when a powerful institution loses its balance.. Supported by legendary Harvard President Lawrence Lowell, Harvard conducted its investigation in secrecy. Several students committed suicide;others had their lives destroyed by an ongoing effort on the part of Harvard to destroy their reputations