A Most Modern Squabble

A Most Modern Squabble The Modern Language Association was founded in 1883 to advance "literary and linguistic studies." Ever since, the only justification for the word modern in the name has been that the association never concerned itself with classical Greek and Latin. Now there is another reason. The association, which is the nation's largest organization of college literature and language teachers, has been struck by the same sort of contemporary dissent that has been trou bling campuses everywhere.

At the M.L.A.'s annual meeting in Manhattan, while most of the professors attending were socializing or seeking new jobs in the famous academic "slave market," a phalanx of activists from the New Left suddenly seized control. Before most members knew what was happening, the staid old association found itself passing resolutions opposing the "illegal and imperial" Viet Nam war, counseling opposition to the draft and denouncing government repression of such writers as LeRoi Jones and Eldridge Cleaver. For good measure, the dissenters also voted to table a proposed new constitution.

What most outraged many members was the unexpected election as second vice-president of M.I.T.'s Louis Kampf, a founder of the New University Conference, which seeks to involve scholars in political issues. The Modern Language leadership had been so confident that the officially nominated candidate, Santa Barbara's Stuart Atkins, would win that an issue of its journal announcing his election had already been sent to press. Now, according to tradition, Kampf will become president in 1970.

Arresting Posters. The rebel cause got an unexpected boost when Kampf and two others were arrested for resisting removal of "radical" posters from the lobby entrance of Manhattan's Americana Hotel, where the three-day meeting was held during the holidays. By forcing the arrests, the hotel management fueled the suspicion of some dissidents that M.L.A. directors were colluding to repress them. After that, the business meeting offered them the opportunity to take over. Of 12,000 who registered for the meeting, only 800 appeared for the voting, and the dissidents had a majority on most issues.

Less radical members of M.L.A. were appalled. "If the M.L.A. starts taking political stands," said Executive Council Member O. B. Hardison of the University of North Carolina, English department, "it may spell the death of this organization. This is an attempt by 300 people to control 28,000." On the contrary, says Kampf: "The association should stimulate its members to personal and active concern with educational and social issues."

The dispute creates a serious split in the M.L.A. Either the non-radicals will manage to end what they consider the dissidents' "subversion" or many of them will quit. The dissidents insist that it is not their aim to take over the association or drive its members out. All they want, they say, is to "put humanism back into the humanities." In the process, they are raising another problem: how to keep professors in the organization.

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