Harvard's Gay Witch Hunt
From Beers with Queers A True Crime Podcast
A secret tribunal. Expulsions. Lives destroyed. Harvard once tried to erase queerness—and buried the truth for nearly a century. In 1920, after the tragic suicide of student Cyril Wilcox, Harvard University launched a covert investigation into homosexual conduct among its students. Acting Dean Chester Noyes Greenough assembled a five-man tribunal that would come to be known only as the "Secret Court." Over two weeks, more than 30 people were summoned and interrogated. Eight students, a recent