Harvard's Secret Court: The Savage 1920 Purge of Campus Homosexuals

New York: St. Martin's Press, 2005. 294 pages, illustrations; 24 cm. Tight, clean copy. Stated First Edition. Dust jacket protected in a mylar cover. A fine copy of the first printing. "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. The note he left behind revealed his secret life as part of a circle of ('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. 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. 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. / William Wright graduated from Yale University in 1952. He is a New York Times bestselling author who has contributed to Vanity Fair, Town and Country, and the New York Times." - CONTENTS: Prologue: A dark place; The students. A death on high street; Shaken Harvard; A walk along the Charles; A rare outbreak of evil; Harvard and the homosexual; America's gay dossier; A party in Perkins; The court in session; The cunning and the damned; Farce to tragedy; Enduring wrath; Surviving Harvard. Settling dust; The Kenneth Day story; The Joe Lumbard story; The Keith Smerage story; Survival struggles; The Nathaniel Wollf story; The Lester Wilcox story; Homophobia's long march; Loose ends; Epilogue: Discovering secrets.. 1st. Hardcover. Fine/Fine. 8vo. Collectible.