Black's last full year in college was in 1961. Many of the political upheavals seen in the '60s were beginning. Not only war, but experiments with hallucinogenic drugs on students (and most likely some unofficial experiments by students) were beginning. Many riots and protests were starting, and Black found the challenge to authority that they represented tempting. Black was arrested for, apparently, loitering in Harvard Square. When a dean was sent to get him out of jail, he almost didn't take the chance, being "surly”, and "insolent." Black's rebelliousness was miss focused though (seems to be a theme with him), because he the authority that he really disliked was his adviser, Anthony Oettinger. Black refused to see Oettinger's efforts as aid, and made no real progress on his thesis, and as a result was kicked out of Harvard in the spring of 1962. This actually brought some relief to Black partly because of the increased independence, and also, in his own words "for the first time in 19 years I am out of School for more than a summer." I don't blame him.
B for Braley for grammatical errors.
ReplyDeleteSorry, in accumulating the grades, I came across this one with no posted comment. I wrote one, but this is before I figured out why sometimes they weren't being saved.
It's interesting that Black had issues with authority, but ended up in that most straightlaced of fields, corporate finance.
FYI: I believe that "unofficial experimentation" didn't begin until the recently deceased Owsley "Bear" Stanley started making and distributing LSD in Berkeley in 1964.