The Secret Court of 1920 was an ad hoc Harvard University disciplinary tribunal of five administrators, led by acting dean Chester Noyes Greenough, formed to investigate charges of homosexual activity among the student population. For two weeks in May and June 1920, the Court conducted more than 30 interviews behind closed doors and took action against eight students, one recent graduate working as a tutor, and one Ph.D. student also serving as an assistant professor for homosexual acts or association with known homosexuals. All ten were expelled or had their association with the university severed; two were later readmitted and went on to have successful careers.
The affair went unreported until 2003, when it was revealed through research in the university archives by The Harvard Crimson.
Suicide of Cyril Wilcox On May 13, 1920, Harvard College student Cyril Wilcox committed suicide by inhaling gas in his parents' house in Fall River, Massachusetts. Wilcox was on leave from the university for health reasons and had been previously warned about poor academic performance. On the night before his suicide, Wilcox confessed to his older brother, George Lester Wilcox, that he had a sexual relationship with Harry Dreyfus, an older Boston man whose parents owned the Hotel Dreyfus.
Shortly after Cyril's death, George Wilcox intercepted letters to Cyril from Harvard student Ernest Roberts and recent graduate and tutor Harold Saxton. These letters contained candid and detailed gossip which convinced George that Harvard was harboring a network of homosexual students. On May 22, George Wilcox located Dreyfus and beat him, extracting the names of three other men involved. Later that day, he met with acting Harvard dean Chester Noyes Greenough and shared the information he had learned from his brother, the letters, and Dreyfus.Paley, Part I; Wright, 9-25. The Crimson article identifies Cyril's older brother as "George." Wright calls him "Lester." Cyril's father was named "George Thomas Wilcox" (Wright, 10), and Cyril's brother was named "George Lester Wilcox". See also: Frederick Sumner Mead, Harvard's Military Record in the World War (Boston: Harvard Alumni Association, 1921), 1024, which details the military service record (1917-19) of George Lester Wilcox of the Harvard class of 1914; Harvard Alumni Directory (Boston: Harvard Alumni Association, 1919), 769. Wright says that Dreyfus provided a list of "some ten names," while Paley says 3, specifically Roberts, Eugene Cummings (a dentistry student), and Pat Courtney (a boy from Boston). Wright 24, Paley, Part I.
Harvard response
Formation of the Court Immediately after meeting with George Wilcox, Greenough consulted Harvard president A. Lawrence Lowell. The two men decided to bypass the standard, relatively slow student disciplinary process. Instead, on May 23, just one day after George Wilcox's visit, Greenough formed a special five-member tribunal which referred to itself as "the Court" to distinguish it from the Administrative Board which handled standard student discipline. This nonspecific name disguised the subject of its investigations, and its files were later stored under the name "Secret Court" in the university archives.
The Court consisted of Greenough as its head along with Roger I. Lee, Matthew Luce, Edward R. Gay, and Kenneth Murdock. Lee was a professor of hygiene and doctor considered an expert in sexual health and responsible for annual physical examinations, which gave him experience posing intimate questions to students about their sexual activity.New York Times: "Dr. Lee to Leave Harvard," February 14, 1924, accessed December 19, 2009; New York Times: "Quit Harvard Corporation," May 22, 1931, accessed December 19, 2009; New York Times: "Dr. Roger Lee, 84, Ex-Head of A.M.A," October 30, 1965, accessed December 19, 2009; Wright, 14-5, 29. Lee cheerfully denounced retirement at age 60 or 65—"The most intelligent of the pensioners rebel when they are retired and lead a miserable existence that cuts short their life span."—and included a chapter titled "The Advantages of Being Fat" in one of his books, The Happy Life of a Doctor (Boston: Little, Brown, and Company, 1956). Luce, who was a regent of the university, was responsible for student discipline and conduct, especially housing and dormitory proctors.Wright, 29; Harvard Crimson: "Luce '91 Appointed Regent," January 20, 1919, accessed December 19, 2009; New York Times: "Resigns as Harvard Regent," July 1, 1935, accessed December 20, 2009; Harvard Crimson: "Office of Regent Passes With Resignation of Matthew Luce," October 4, 1935, accessed December 19, 2009. His earlier attempt to resign failed. The Crimson reported: "Regent Luce...gave as the reason for his resignation the fact that he was no longer necessary and that his office is no more than a title. 'While the student body at one time was boisterous and hard to handle, for some years they have been docile and amendable to University regulation The days when pistols were fired up chimneys, when statues were painted, when free speech was exercised, are now no more.... We of this office are only human and sometimes wish that someone would play with a fire extinguisher or do something spectacular in order that ancient and long-standing statutes might be put to use. We have hoped in vain, and in fear of premature age through inactivity I have resigned.' He said that the present staff of Yard Cops would not retire with him, but since they were ageing [sic] fast would be retained for sentiment's sake." Harvard Crimson: "Beloved Regent Gives Up Post," March 6, 1928, accessed December 19, 2009 Gay and Murdock were young assistant deans, both slightly older than the undergraduates.New York Times: "Edward Gay, 67, Paper Executive," July 29, 1966, accessed December 18, 2009New York Times: Peter B. Flint, "Kenneth Murdock of Harvard Is Dead," November 16, 1975, accessed December 18, 2009; New York Times: "Harold Murdock is Dead in Boston," April 6, 1934, accessed December 18, 2009; Literature & Theology in Colonial New England (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1949), The Notebooks of Henry James (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1974). The court reported to Lowell, and his rulings were final.Paley, Part I; Wright, 28-30
At the inception of the Court, Greenough identified Ernest Roberts, the son of former U.S. representative Ernest W. Roberts, as the principal target of its inquiry. On the same day as the Court was formed, Greenough spoke to Windsor Hosmer, a graduate business student and proctor of Perkins Hall, where Roberts was a resident. Hosmer told Greenough that he knew Roberts hosted parties in Perkins but caused no disturbances and broke no rules. Greenough assigned Hosmer to monitor visits to Roberts' room for three days and report both current and past visitors. On May 26, Hosmer listed Harvard College students Kenneth Day, Keith Smerage, and Nathaniel Wolff and dentistry student Eugene Cummings as visitors. Day and Smerage were noted as frequent visitors. Two other visitors objected to inclusion of their names, and Hosmer informed Greenough that he was "inclined to think that neither is part of the group that has centered around Perkins." A few days later, Hosmer returned to report that the last two boys had objected to his inclusion of their names.Wright, 46-7, 50-51; Paley, Part I. Paley's report of the contents of the list differs. He says Say in place of Smerage and omits Wolff. With respect to Hosmer's role, Perkins Hall is actually a complex with 4 entrances.
Nathaniel Wollf was a 25-year-old from Buffalo, New York, just days away from graduating, when he volunteered to Greenough that he had information about the suicide of Cyril Wilcox and was quickly swept up in the court's investigation. When interviewed he described several homosexual experiences but asserted he had made a clean break. The Court expelled him and refused his requests for re-admittance though it had initially offered hope that he might return. Wollf's application for admittance to McGill University was also denied because of Harvard's report of the reason for his expulsion. Wollf earned a medical degree at Bellevue Hospital Medical College in New York City. After studying psychiatry for three more years, he spent ten years pursuing painting and academic interests. He traveled widely and briefly converted to Islam. He opened a nightclub in Barcelona in 1935. During World War II, he returned to the United States and he served as a psychiatrist for returning soldiers. He then practiced medicine in Mexico. He never married and died in London in 1959.Paley, Part I; Wright, 131-3, 215ff.
First anonymous letter On May 26, an unsigned, typed letter was sent to Greenough, confirming and enlarging the allegations made by George Wilcox. It likely reached Greenough just as the Court began interviewing students. Its author identified himself as a junior and described how Cyril Wilcox had fallen in with a set of classmates during his freshman year who "committed upon him and induced him to commit upon them 'Unnatural Acts'" and had killed himself when he determined he lacked the "strength of character" to stop participating in such activity. According to the writer, Roberts was "the leader of this group and directly responsible" for the suicide:
In addition to Hussey and Courtney, the writer also named Day, Cummings, and student Edward Say as regular participants, as well as Saxton, and pressed home his point by describing parties where "the most disgusting and disgraceful and revolting acts of degeneracy and depravity took place openly in plain view of all present." The letter closed with a rhetorical question: "Isn't it about time an end was put to this sort of thing in college?"Paley, Part I; Wright 47-8.
Investigation On May 27, the Court began interrogations. Greenough summoned each witness with a brief, non-specific note requesting their appearance in his office, directing students to appear even if necessary to miss a final exam.Paley, Part IWright, 114 No transcripts of the interrogations survived, and it is difficult to ascertain the tenor of the exchanges from the Court's notes. The Court pressed witnesses and challenged them with conflicting facts and the notes record admissions of guilt followed by attempts to recant, as well as denials followed by admissions. The Court noted that Saxton "when pushed ... practically confessed to one act, but later retracted," and Day "confessed to H.S. [homosexual] relations with Roberts, after denial at first."