Just minutes before President Steven Koblik called the program to order in Vollum Lecture Hall, he casually alerted me, in my role as moderator for the evening, that our tightly scheduled agenda might at some point be interrupted by a roving "Take back the night" demonstration. If this were to happen, he advised, I should "just go on with the program."

With that disquieting caution in mind, we launched into the evening. The five panel members--Stanley Moore (in absentia), David Eyre (also in absentia), Michael Munk '56, George Joseph '51, and Carl Stevens '42--had been given the tough task of addressing the topic in ten to fifteen minutes.

Moore, whose health prevented his coming to Portland for the event (which was cosponsored by the Portland chapter of the Reed alumni association and the Oregon Historical Society) had taped his contribution in advance, and the 17-minute videotape got the evening off to a rousing start. The audience roared its approval when the handsome 83-year-old philosopher, in response to a general question about lessons learned from the "Moore affair," answered calmly: "It was, in many respects, a cut-and-dried problem. I think what we've learned is that colleges should be more careful in the selection of trustees."

Former Reed trustee (one of two still living from the group that fired Moore in 1954) David Eyre contributed to the program by way of a written statement, which was read to the audience. In addition to repudiating the board's 1954 action in firing Moore, and apologizing "to Professor Moore, if only for myself," Eyre wanted "to speak a rare kind word for the board," insisting that "its members were not an unrelenting, belligerent bunch of Portland Heights elitists determined to put Reed's faculty in its place."

Michael Munk, whose article in the Oregon Historical Quarterly was a catalyst for the evening's program, paid tribute throughout his presentation to individuals who, in a variety of ways, fought McCarthyism in Portland in the 1950s. Munk, a Reed student in 1954 and an activist to vindicate Stanley Moore since 1969, outlined the history of the college's official response (often in the words of Reed's presidents) in the decades following Moore's firing. Munk's take on the primary lesson learned from the 40-plus years of the "Moore affair" was this: those who are officially in charge of Reed College's welfare should never again allow "the reputation of the college to be held hostage to the reputation of individuals"--that is, the members of the Reed board of trustees who fired Moore in 1954.