The Board of Trustees of Hofstra University has upheld the university administration’s refusal to force the removal of a Nazi flag that has been flown by a student from his dormitory window since Sunday on the grounds that the issue is one of freedom of expression. Admiral Harold Miller (USN ret.) vice president for university relations, told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency yesterday that after a day-long meeting during which the flag issue was discussed, the trustees decided to confirm Hofstra’s policy of complete freedom of expression for its students.
According to Admiral Miller, that policy was adopted 10 years ago after a similar furore arose on the campus over a student invitation to the late George Lincoln Rockwell, leader of the American Nazi Party, to speak. “Rockwell spoke and laid the biggest egg,” he said.
GROUPS SEEKING COMMUNITY SUPPORT
Tension is mounting on the campus nevertheless. Rabbi Leo Wolf, director of the B’nai B’rith Hillel Foundation at Hofstra, told the JTA today that Jewish and non-Jewish groups on campus and off are seeking community support to get the university authorities to remove the offensive symbol.
He said a student-faculty group met with Hofstra president Clifford Lord after the trustees’ meeting but that Lord was “non-committal.” According to Rabbi Wolf, students are saying that if the administration does not act soon to remove the flag, they will take matters into their own hands.
The flag is being flown by David Kerr, a 21-year-old junior who, the JTA disclosed yesterday, is a member of the anti-Semitic National Renaissance Party of James Madole and is also associated with the National Socialist White People’s Party of Arlington, Va., formerly the American Nazi Party. The second of two paid advertisements recruiting members to the Arlington group was published in the student newspaper. “The Chronicle” today.
The ad, placed by Kerr, contained a swastika and the slogan, “Hitler was Right, White Men Unite.” The ads raised a storm of protest and reportedly created a split among the student editors but were published on the grounds of freedom of expression. Hofstra is a private university with a student body of 12,000 which campus sources estimate to be 40-50 percent Jewish with a similar proportion of Jews on the faculty. According to Rabbi Wolf, about half of the trustees are Jewish.
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The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
