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- [00:02]
Timothy Patrick McCarthy
This episode is brought to you by Universal Pictures. From Universal Pictures in Blumhouse come a storm of terror. From the director of the Shallows. The Woman in the Yard. Don't let her in. Where does she come from? What does she want? When will she leave? Today's the day. The Woman in the Yard Only in theaters March 28th.
- [00:31]
Margo Gray
Meghan Trainor Laundry retrainer. Meghan Trainor. You're tossing out my gunky laundry detergent bottle. Ooey, it's got that booty? That juicy bum boom that don't bite alive?
- [00:46]
Timothy Patrick McCarthy
Arm and hammer power?
- [00:48]
Margo Gray
Sheets toss like this? Cause I toss like this?
- [00:51]
Timothy Patrick McCarthy
A wash like this?
- [00:53]
Margo Gray
It's a no mess? Laundry bliss? Arm and hammer power? She power to you? This episode contains reference to suicide. Please take care while listening. In May 1920, a small town paper in Massachusetts ran a story about the death of a Harvard student named Cyril. Cyril's death was attributed to accidental suffocation, but in truth, Cyril had committed suicide. His death and the moments leading up to it kickstarted a series of events at Harvard that would lead to the creation of a secret court, the expulsion of multiple students, and ultimately, another tragic death. For nearly a century, these events remained hidden until a reporter for the Harvard Crimson stumbled upon an archive mysteriously labeled Secret Court. What he found inside sent shock waves across campus.
- [01:59]
Timothy Patrick McCarthy
This discovery, because it was something that was meant to be hidden, literally, Harvard kept this archive in the closet so that we could not know this part of Harvard's history.
- [02:11]
Margo Gray
I'm Margo Gray. This week on Campus Files. The suicide of a Harvard student triggers a secretive administrative tribunal so scandalous that that Harvard spent decades trying to keep it hidden. Harvard University is a household name. Founded well before the Declaration of Independence, it holds a central place in American history and culture. Over the centuries, it's been celebrated for its triumphs and hailed as the birthplace of some of the world's most influential leaders. But like any institution of its stature, Harvard has chapters in its history it would prefer to keep hidden.
- [02:57]
Timothy Patrick McCarthy
My name is Timothy Patrick McCarthy. I'm a historian who teaches on the faculty at Harvard. I teach at the Graduate School of Education and the Harvard Kennedy School of Government, where I am the faculty chair of the new global LGBTQI Human Rights Program.
- [03:14]
Margo Gray
Tim went to Harvard for undergrad in the early 1990s. He was back there as a professor in 2002 when one of those closely guarded secrets finally came to light. Much to the administration's dismay, a student reporter who spent months fighting for access to an archive labeled Secret Court. That secret was uncovered by Amit. When Harvard finally relented, Amit discovered records of a deeply invasive tribunal led by some of the university's most prominent administrators. This tribunal, known as the Secret Court, was convened after the suicide of Cyril Wilcox, whose tragic story we heard at the start of the episode.
- [03:58]
Timothy Patrick McCarthy
Cyril Wilcox, who was an undergraduate at Harvard at the time, he was on leave, on medical leave from the college, and he committed suicide on May 13th of 1920. The night before he committed suicide, he confessed to his brother that he was actually involved in a homosexual relationship with a man from Boston by the name of Harry Dreyfuss.
- [04:20]
Margo Gray
Harry was a waiter at a Boston cafe known to be a popular gathering spot for the city's gay community. Harry was eight years older than Cyril, but they hit it off right away. According to friends, the two were almost inseparable for months. But eventually things fell apart. Cyril ended the relationship and Harry did not take it well. He was allegedly so distraught over the breakup that that he threatened to out Cyril to Harvard administrators. On the night of May 13, Cyril confided in his older brother about his relationship with Harry. By the next day, Cyril was dead, leaving his brother heartbroken. The story could very well have ended here, but a letter from a friend arrived for Cyril after he died. The content of that letter was not only deeply personal, but also highly incriminating.
- [05:15]
Timothy Patrick McCarthy
The brother, who's in mourning, perhaps, but also stunned by the revelation of his brother's homosexuality, intercepts a couple of letters that were friends from Harvard who were in the letters detailing parties that they'd had and other kinds of things that they were doing.
- [05:32]
Margo Gray
One of the letters came from a classmate named Ernest, the son of a prominent state politician.
- [05:39]
C
Dear Cyril, I am a rag. I hadn't heard from Paul for three weeks, or at least it seemed that long, until last Saturday.
- [05:47]
Margo Gray
The letter from Ernest spanned nine pages and revealed that Cyril had been part of a vibrant, though secretive, gay community at Harvard. Cyril's brother was shocked. He had long believed that Cyril had been coerced into the relationship. But this letter, and another that arrived soon after painted a very different picture. That Cyril had been a willing, even eager participant. In the 1920s. Sexuality was just beginning to be studied by social scientists. But for most people, sexual activity was still seen through a religious lens, with same sex relationships considered sinful. Cyril's brother shared that view.
- [06:31]
Timothy Patrick McCarthy
So the brother was so jarred by that, all of that, that he decided to set out to try to find this guy, Harry Dreyfus. And he found him just over a.
- [06:41]
Margo Gray
Week after Cyril's death, his older brother brother showed up at the doorstep of Cyril's ex, Harry Dreyfus. The details of their conversation remain unclear, but by the end of it, Cyril's brother had a list of allegedly gay Harvard students in hand, and Harry was bloodied and beaten in his own home. Later that day, armed with letters and names, Cyril's brother went to meet with the dean of Harvard College. What he shared in that meeting led directly to the creation of the secret court, a tribunal made up of five influential Harvard administrators.
- [07:19]
Timothy Patrick McCarthy
And what it really was was a kind of ad hoc tribunal that was created to be outside of the normal disciplinary procedures of Harvard College at the time.
- [07:30]
Margo Gray
In the following weeks, the court would orchestrate a secretive, invasive and shockingly effective inquisition into the sexual lives of Harvard students. Those students who were unlucky enough to be caught up in it found their lives forever changed.
- [07:51]
Timothy Patrick McCarthy
Are you ever minding your own business and start to wonder, is the great Pacific Garbage Patch real? How do the northern lights happen? Why is weed not legal yet? I'm Jonathan Van Ness and every week on Getting Curious, I sit down for a gorgeous conversation with a brilliant expert to learn all about something that makes me curious. Join me every Wednesday as we set off on a stunning journey curiosity on a new subject and dive into the archive of more than 370 episodes. Listen to Getting Curious wherever you get your podcasts.
- [08:26]
Margo Gray
Two weeks after Cyril's death, Ernest, the author of the nine page letter that had been intercepted and was now in the hands of the court, received a note from the Dean of Harvard College.
- [08:38]
C
I expect you, whatever your engagement may be, to appear at my Office tomorrow, Friday, May 28, at 2:45pm if necessary, you are directed to cut a final examination in order to keep this appointment.
- [08:53]
Timothy Patrick McCarthy
Anytime a Harvard student gets a summons from the administration to appear before a disciplinary board, it's a major issue and it's not one that's welcome in their lives. And these folks didn't even know what they were being called to talk about for the most part. I'm sure it caused shockwaves through these folks, particularly if these young men were talking to one another and finding out that other people within their, their social circles and sexual circles in some cases, were also being summoned.
- [09:22]
Margo Gray
Ernest was the son of a prominent Massachusetts politician. Any trouble at Harvard would lead to embarrassment for his family, so the risk of this summons was enormous.
- [09:33]
Timothy Patrick McCarthy
Harvard was the finishing school for the Boston Brahmin elites. If you were one of those people and some of these students were from those families, These elite families and so forth. The embarrassment that you were going to bring to your family, right, as someone who was gay or homosexual, would have carried with it an enormous amount of social anxiety and emotion. Likewise, if you're from a more working class background or a background where you don't have those deep Harvard connections and those highfalutin sort of social statuses, those kids too would feel incredibly vulnerable and anxious in a different way, right, that they finally got in, but now they're going to be kicked out, and that too would be an embarrassment to their family.
- [10:19]
Margo Gray
From the court's perspective, leveling an accusation like this against any student carried risk. But the stakes were much higher when the student in question was the son of a respected politician. In other words, the burden of proof was high. The trouble was, Ernest seemed to be at the heart of it all. The court knew from the letters that his dorm room was the central meeting point for this entire social circle. So with commencement just weeks away, the court decided to pursue an intense investigation to secure the evidence they needed.
- [10:54]
Timothy Patrick McCarthy
One of the people that they enlisted to help them with their work, the members of the secret court was this guy named Windsor Hosmer, who was, what would we call it, Harvard proctors. He was a first year proctor, which is basically like an RA or a resident assistant. And he was, I think, a graduate student who was enlisted by the secret court to spy on, to basically place under surveillance Ernest Roberts and other men that were part of this larger community to basically track their activities and behaviors over a period of three or four days.
- [11:28]
Margo Gray
The court gave the proctor three days to monitor Ernest's room, instructing him to report back with the names of everyone who visited.
- [11:36]
Timothy Patrick McCarthy
He was doing this at the request of the secret court. And so, you know, they may not have even known that they were being watched and being tracked in that way.
- [11:46]
Margo Gray
On deadline, a list of names was delivered, and it mostly matched the names from the two letters that Cyril's brother had submitted to the court. That same day, an anonymous letter arrived addressed to the court. The writer claimed to be a student with knowledge of the circumstances surrounding the Cyril's suicide.
- [12:06]
C
While in his freshman year, Cyril met in college some boys, mostly members of his own class, who committed upon him and induced him to commit upon them unnatural acts, which habit so grew on him that realizing he did not have the strength of character enough to break away from it, concluded suicide. The only course open to him. The leader of these students guilty of this deplorable practice and the one directly responsible for Cyril Wilcox's Suicide is earnest. His rooms at Perkins 28, where he and more of his type have, during the past college year, conducted parties that beggar description.
- [12:43]
Margo Gray
The letter concluded with a clear directive for the court.
- [12:47]
C
Isn't it about time an end was put to this sort of thing in college? If you will look into the above, you will find these charges based on fact.
- [12:58]
Margo Gray
Within 24 hours, Kenneth Day, who was mentioned in Ernest's letter, the proctor's surveillance report, and the anonymous letter, became the first student summoned for interrogation. No transcripts from these interrogations remain, but notes and findings make it clear that the conversation was far from friendly.
- [13:18]
Timothy Patrick McCarthy
No question that they were aggressive interrogations. You know, they were probably sitting there in front of these five, you know, members of the administration and faculty being interrogated about all sorts of things. The professor of hygiene at the medical school who was in charge of the physical examinations of students, was asking questions about masturbation, was asking questions about, like, penises and sexual acts and these kinds of things in ways that we can gather were quite unfiltered and quite direct. It was a different kind of examination, not a physical examination, but it was a social and sexual examination that was, in essence, an interrogation that was based on persecution of these folks who were on the margins of society and also marginalized within the context of Harvard.
- [14:08]
Margo Gray
Kenneth, the first student summoned for interrogation, was Cyril's freshman year roommate and also spent time in Ernest's dorm room. Though only sparse notes remain from the interrogation, it seems Kenneth quickly realized just how much the court already knew. Adding to the pressure to cooperate was the fact that both of his parents were deceased, meaning he depended on relatives for financial support to attend Harvard. In the end, Kenneth confirmed the guilt of each student under investigation, including Ernest, and his testimony prompted the court to intensify its investigation. It's unclear exactly how many people were summoned in total, but the court was bold enough to call in two individuals completely unaffiliated with Cyril's former lover Harry, and one of Harry's co workers. With both men, the court was able to extract additional information. Ultimately, the court felt confident enough to summon Ernest. To the outside world, Ernest appeared to be a respectable figure. He'd served in Harvard's unit of the Student Army Training Corps during World War I and had planned to attend Harvard Medical School after graduation. He also had a public heterosexual relationship with a woman in a nearby town. But by the time the court launched its investigation, his grades had slipped and he was placed on academic probation. A letter from his father helped keep his medical school hopes alive. But his future at Harvard was still on shaky ground. It's unclear whether Ernest had heard from friends about what was coming when he was called in by the court. Upon arriving, he initially denied any involvement, but seemed to change his tune when he realized how much the court already knew. In an apparent attempt to save himself, he threw Cyril under the bus, claiming that Cyril had led both him and Kenneth, the first student questioned, astray. By the time the court finished its interrogations, it had gathered enough evidence to take action. Harvard punished 10 students, seven of whom were expelled and ordered to leave Cambridge immediately. Ernest was ordered to withdraw from Harvard and leave campus. Along with this directive, the dean of Harvard sent him a note with a.
- [16:33]
C
The letter that I am sending your father this morning, although it does not tell him everything, necessitates your telling him everything.
- [16:42]
Margo Gray
One student, though, never learned of his expulsion. On June 11, 1920, Eugene Cummings, a Harvard Dental school student and a subject of the court's inquiry, committed suicide by poison. Two Harvard men Die Suddenly read the headline of the Boston American. On June 19, 1920, Eugene Cummings suicide was the second at Harvard in just one month. The investigation that Harvard had pursued so aggressively and secretly was starting to receive attention. The article read in part.
- [17:25]
C
Cummings, who is said to have been mentally unbalanced, told the story of an alleged inquisition which he claimed was held in the college office following Wilcox's death. He said that he was taken into the office which was shrouded in gloom with but one light dimly burning, and there questioned exhaustively.
- [17:44]
Margo Gray
Harvard denied Eugene's story. In a private letter to the parents of one of the expelled students, the dean wrote, every effort has been made to prevent any knowledge of this affair from becoming public. While the university worked hard to suppress any publicity, it also expanded the scope of its punishment. Harvard sought to have Searle's ex lover and his co worker fired from their job jobs as waiters. And in addition to expelling students from campus, the court directed the alumni office to place a note in each student's file requiring that Harvard provide a negative response to any question about the reputation or academics of punished students. As a result of this directive, at least three students were denied admission to other universities. Even after the court disbanded, the dean continued his campaign of punishment by personally outing each student to his family. In letters to parents, he described these students as guilty of behavior, quote, so unspeakably gross that the intimates of those who commit these acts become tainted.
- [18:52]
Timothy Patrick McCarthy
It's very clear to me and those of us who have seen these archives that they sought to Punish these particular students for who they are and what they were engaged in. None of it was a violation of any sort specific policy of Harvard. So the question is like, what exactly are they in violation of? The punishment was not just meant to punish these individual students. It was meant to send a message to students like them or to people who may have been involved but not yet discovered. And so it's meant to do two things. Punish the individual and send a very strong message to the larger collective of students that were there.
- [19:31]
Margo Gray
Tim says this kind of thing is not uncommon even today.
- [19:35]
Timothy Patrick McCarthy
I'm gonna be very clear about that. I've seen many instances over my years at Harvard in the 21st century and the late 20th century of moments where particular kinds of student activists say are made an example of or people who are engaged in academic dishonesty are made an example of as a way to send a message to people that this will not be tolerated.
- [20:00]
Margo Gray
The devastating consequences of the court's investigation changed the lives of those it punished. The students carried the weight of that secret for the rest of their lives. And it wasn't until shortly after the last of the so called guilty died that the story finally resurfaced.
- [20:20]
Timothy Patrick McCarthy
I, like most people, found out about it in 2002 when Amit Pali, who was one of the writers and editors for the Harvard Crimson, discovered the archives that had been in a secret location, an undisclosed location at Harvard for all of that time, for 82 years. And so Amit actually went through the process to demand access to the archives.
- [20:45]
Margo Gray
The story could just have easily remained hidden. Everyone who had lived through it was gone. The only newspaper that had reported on Eugene's suicide had long since shut down and Harvard administrators certainly weren't eager to publicize the story.
- [21:00]
Timothy Patrick McCarthy
He had to go up against Harvard's resistance to making those archives available of unredacting names, or to giving him full access to all of the elements of the archives. So he did a great service to history and to Harvard frankly, in being so persistent and resilient in the face of what might have stopped someone who was less enterprising or less talented.
- [21:23]
Margo Gray
Limited and redacted access to the findings was finally granted. After months of back and forth, those findings were published in a two part article titled the Secret Court of 1920. And the revelations sent shockwaves across campus. The story made headlines in the Washington Post and in the New York Times. And soon after, the Harvard Crimson ran an editorial calling on the university to issue posthumous degrees to the students it had punished. Harvard's president at the time, Larry Summers responded to the controversy by saying, whatever attitudes may have been prevalent then, persecuting individuals on the basis of sexual orientation is abhorrent and an affront to the values of our university. We are a better and more just community today because those attitudes have changed as much as they have as of yet. Harvard has declined to issue posthumous degrees. Most recently in 2020, on the 100th anniversary of the Secret Court, a student led group called The Secret Court 100 organized a series of events. During one of those events, Tim led a panel where he discussed the concept of the Harvard man, the sharp, well dressed, hyper masculine ideal that defined the era. I asked him to elaborate on that idea.
- [22:46]
Timothy Patrick McCarthy
Harvard has a long tradition of seeing itself as a sort of like maker of elites. There was this idea that these were elites, these were refined, intelligent, right? I mean, to use other kinds of terrible language, civilized. And, you know, and that idea of a Harvard man is also something that comes with a really complex understanding of masculinity. Though there were all of these ways in which, like codes of masculinity were like wrapped up into this idea of what it meant to be a Harvard, in this case, man. And obviously, I think this episode places into sharp relief the fact that the presumed Harvard man was also presumed to be heterosexual.
- [23:29]
Margo Gray
Tim talks about the deeply entrenched contradictions within Harvard's culture. The tension between the idealized vision of the Harvard man and the reality that has always simmered just beneath the surface. Here's how he sees it.
- [23:45]
Timothy Patrick McCarthy
Harvard has final clubs which were super queer, some of them Hasty Pudding Theatricals, which until very recently was an all male drag show that was one of the most gloriously celebrated things. The sports teams, right? I mean, there's a famous picture in the Harvard Faculty Club in the corner of one of the rooms, there's this picture of this bare chested rower. And it could not be more homoerotic. It's like something out of Robert Mapplethorpe. And so, you know, you have all of these things all over Harvard that are just screaming queenery if you pay close enough attention to them. So this ideal, or ideal, this fiction of a Harvard man, though it came wrapped in a kind of fervent heterosexuality, was never just that. It was always much queerer than it was meant to be. And I think frankly that that's probably the thing that is at the root of the anxiety. Not that there are these others in our midst, but that we may be them. And that's always been part of the anxiety that drives the prejudice and the acrimony towards queer people. In a way, Harvard, in outing these gay students and then purging them from its society, was an attempt trying to put itself back into a closet. Which is why you have these private archives labeled the Secret Court, which were impenetrable to anyone until 2002, when a closeted gay reporter from the Crimson Amit is now out and living a wonderful queer life, demanded to have access to these closeted letters and notes and archives that now allow us to tell this story in a way that's much more out and public and part of the record and history of the university.
- [25:36]
Margo Gray
There's one more detail I want to share from what Amit uncovered in the Secret Court files. Earlier you heard about an anonymous letter the court received naming students tied to the parties in Perkins Hall. But there's another anonymous letter I haven't mentioned yet. Tucked inside it is a warning. At least 50 guilty students, most of whom completely escaped the court's scrutiny, would quote, no doubt continue in this misconduct and spread the practice until it may get beyond you. The letter is full of homophobic language, but it also provides evidence that despite the court's efforts efforts to suppress it queer life at Harvard continued Campus Files is an Odyssey Original Podcast this episode was written and reported by Ian Mont. Campus Files is produced by Ian Mont, Eliot Adler and me Margo Gray. Our executive producers and story editors are Maddie Sprunkheiser and Lloyd Lockridge. Campus Files is edited, mixed and mastered by Chris Basel and Andy Jaskowicz. Special thanks to Jenna Weiss Berman, J.D. crowley, Leah Rhys, Dennis, Maura Curran, Josephina Francis, Kurt Courtney, Hilary Schuff, Sean Cherry, Laura Berman and Hilary Van Ornam. Original theme music by James Waterman and Davey Sumner. If you have tips or story ideas, write to us@campusfilespodmail.com I'm Jordan Robinson, host.
- [27:27]
Timothy Patrick McCarthy
Of the new podcast the Women's Hoop Show.
- [27:30]
Margo Gray
Each episode I'll be joined by a rotating group of women's basketball experts to talk wnba, college hoops, the new unrivaled league, and the shifting landscape of the sport. The game is growing, and so are we. Listen to and follow the Women's Hoop show and Odyssey Podcast, available now for free on the Odyssey app or wherever.
- [27:49]
Timothy Patrick McCarthy
You get your podcasts.