A retired University of Hawaii associate professor, who was once the rallying point for academic freedom after being fired for expressing views against the Vietnam War in the 1960s, has died.
Oliver Minseem Lee, who had congestive heart disease, died May 1 at his home in Makiki. He was 91.
“He was an admirable person,” said UH Professor Emeritus George Simson, who helped Lee successfully fight to keep his job at UH.
“He never gave in,” Simson said. “He never gave up and he never gave out, and he did it through civilized means.”
Lee was reviled by staunch supporters of U.S. military involvement in Vietnam who viewed him as a communist sympathizer.
But he was admired and became a rallying point for supporters of the peace movement, more than 150 of whom were arrested alongside him in an anti-war protest at the university’s administration building in 1968.
“It brought heightened awareness of the Vietnam War,” said Eleanor “Elly” Chong, a student protester who supported Lee. “I think, looking back, we were vindicated.”
Lee was born Dec. 7, 1925, in Shanghai to his father, Jinfa, a Chinese poet and sculptor who met his wife, Gerta, a painter, in Germany.
In his memoir, “Oliver’s Travels: The Making of a Chinese-American Radical,” Lee described his cosmopolitan background, traveling in his early years to Asia, Europe and the United States.
Lee lived with his mother in Germany in the 1930s,
witnessing the rise of Adolf Hitler, and eventually moved to China to live with his father and later to Mauritius to avoid Japan’s invasion of Asia.
He finished high school in New York and became a U.S. citizen in 1959.
Lee graduated cum laude from Harvard University and earned a Ph.D at the University of Chicago before getting a teaching job as an assistant professor in political science at UH-Manoa in 1963.
In his memoir, Lee wrote that he disagreed with the American analysis that there would be a domino effect upon neighboring countries if Vietnam were to fall to the communists. He advocated establishing a relationship with Vietnam similar to other communist countries, such as Bulgaria.
After several years of teaching at UH, Lee received a letter of intent that he was to be granted tenure, assuring him a permanent position.
But the letter was withdrawn after a leftist student group issued a strongly worded anti-war statement. Lee, who served as the group’s faculty adviser, didn’t agree with parts of the statement but did not dissuade the students from saying it, based on their right to free speech, said Michael Shapiro, who taught political science with Lee.
“He felt it was up to them … what to do,” Shapiro said.
The UH Faculty Senate voted to support Lee receiving tenure, prompting the resignation of UH President Thomas Hamilton.
After students and faculty were arrested at the administration building sit-in, the Board of Regents and top administrators refused to reinstate Lee. Others criticized his teaching performance and academic production.
But the overarching issue that took hold in the controversy was the right to free speech and the lack of due process in Lee’s dismissal.
After conducting an investigation, the American Association of University Professors decided in Lee’s favor. The Board of Regents reversed its decision after a top candidate to become UH president, Harlan Cleveland, said he would not accept the job unless the controversy over Lee was resolved.
“The regents buckled,” Shapiro said.
Lee continued to participate in supporting political causes, including opposition to apartheid in South Africa and the Iraq War, and served as Chinese-language secretary for the Tsung Tsin Association.
Lee is survived by wife May, brother Mansing, daughter Vivien Lee, sons Steven and Ken, and six grandchildren.
A celebration of life is scheduled for 4 p.m. June 17 at the Church of the Crossroads.
