Secret Court of 1920

The Secret Court of 1920 was an ad hoc disciplinary tribunal of five administrators at Harvard University formed to investigate charges of homosexual activity among the student population. During two weeks in May and June 1920, the Court headed by Acting Dean Chester Noyes Greenough conducted more than thirty interviews behind closed doors and took action against eight students, a recent graduate, and an assistant professor. They were expelled or had their association with the university severed. Two of the students were later readmitted. The affair went unreported until 2002.

On May 13, 1920, Cyril Wilcox, a Harvard undergraduate, committed suicide by inhaling gas in his parents' house in Fall River, Massachusetts. Newspaper reports called the death accidental. At the time Wilcox had been warned about his poor academic performance and had withdrawn from school for reasons of health. The night before his death, Wilcox had confessed to his older brother, George Lester Wilcox, himself a graduate of Harvard, that he had been having an affair with Harry Dreyfus, an older Boston man.

George, shortly after his brother's death, intercepted two letters to Cyril, one from Ernest Roberts, a Harvard student, and another from Harold Saxton, a recent graduate. Their candid and detailed gossip convinced him that Harvard was harboring a network of homosexual students. On May 22, George Wilcox located Dreyfus, extracted from him the names of three other men involved, and beat him. Later that day, he met with Harvard's Acting Dean Greenough and shared what he knew: his brother's admission, the contents of the letters, and what Dreyfus had told him.

Greenough promptly consulted with Harvard President Abbott Lawrence Lowell and the decision was made to obviate the normal and relatively slow-moving student disciplinary process before the Administrative Board made up of faculty members and the Dean. Instead, on May 23, 1920, just a day after listening to Wilcox, Greenough formed a special five-man tribunal which has come to be called the "Secret Court," because its files were stored under that name in the University Archives. The participants themselves called it "The Court" to distinguish it from the usual Administrative Board. The unspecific name also disguised the subject of its investigations.

Acting Dean Greenough was to head the Court. Another senior member was Professor of Hygiene Robert I. Lee, the doctor responsible for the students' annual physical examinations, who had experience posing intimate questions about sexual activity. A third was Regent Matthew Luce, whose responsibilities included student discipline and conduct, especially housing and dormitory proctors. They were all roughly forty years old or more. Two young Assistant Deans, Edward R. Gay and Kenneth Murdock, both just a little older than the undergraduates, filled out the Court's membership. The Court reported to President Lowell, and his rulings were final.

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