A discussion of Harvard University's ethical responsibilities by the college's president considers the reasons why universities have traditionally been reluctant to take formal positions on ethical and political issues arising in the outside world. These reasons include a belief that such positions will establish an orthodoxy that may inhibit intellectual freedom; a realization that universities cannot exert economic leverage to affect disputes beyond the campus without inviting outside pressure to influence academic policies; and a concern over the impropriety of diverting universitV resources away from the academic purposes for which they were entrusted. Universities are designed to achieve particular purposes; their special mission is the discovery and transmission of knowledge. Their institutional goal is not to reform society in specific ways. At the very least, individuals in the university will be offended by the creation of official doctrines that conflict with their personal convictions. Society respects the freedom of academic institutions only because it assumes that they will devote themselves to the academic pursuits for which that freedom was extended. Any loss of university funds can impair the academic enterprise, and ethical choice may involve the course of action that does least harm to legitimate human interests and important social goals involved in the university's mission. (SW)