When the local U.S. attorney subpoenaed Drake University last month for records of a student group and followed that up with a gag order, lawyers' listservs hummed with outraged comments. The AAUP and the ACLU issued statements denouncing what many considered an inappropriate intrusion into academe. Newspapers and magazines across the country picked up the story of the silenced university, with editorial writers using such phrases as "witch hunt," "McCarthy-like," and "a chill" on free expression.

A week later, the subpoena was quashed and the gag order withdrawn. But that has not stopped the storm of questions and concerns raised about whether the incident was an aberration or the new reality of the post-September 11 academic world.

"How much is the federal government investigating universities?" asks Sally B. Frank, a law professor at Drake. "And to what extent are campuses facing subpoenas about student forums? This could be the tip of the iceberg."

Even as Drake officials were deciding how to respond, Army intelligence agents were asking questions about participants in a conference about Islam at the University of Texas at Austin. (See article on Page A10.)

The parallels between the two incidents are "worrisome," says Robert M. O'Neil, founder of the Thomas Jefferson Center for the Protection of Free Expression and a professor of law at the University of Virginia. "The focus on who had attended a conference and what was being discussed, without any clear or obvious reason -- you have a climate that's clearly cause for anxiety," says Mr. O'Neil. "We haven't seen anything like this in 35 or possibly 40 years."

To compel a university to reveal the records and names of members of a recognized campus organization "intrudes deeply and dangerously into the affairs of a group of students and encroaches upon freedom of expression and association," said the American Association of University Professors, in a written statement on the Drake case.

It is unclear precisely why the government tried to force Drake to give up names and other information related to an antiwar conference. U.S. Attorney Stephen Patrick O'Meara, who asked for the subpoenas, has declined all requests for interviews, although he said in a written statement that the investigation concerned a possible conspiracy to unlawfully enter government property. The Justice Department also declined to comment.

But participants in the Drake drama did have a bird's-eye view of the events as they unfolded. Here is what they saw -- and the reaction that followed.

Training in Nonviolence

Last semester Jason Dunn, a third-year law student at Drake who is co-president of the campus chapter of the National Lawyers Guild, agreed, on behalf of the chapter, to play host to a conference on November 15 for local antiwar activists who were planning a demonstration at Iowa's National Guard headquarters the following day. His role, he says, was to sign up for a room in the campus student center and be sure there was plenty of coffee.

A flier for the event, "Stop the Occupation! Bring the Iowa Guard Home!," listed discussions on subjects like the Veterans for Peace Iraq water project, the American tradition of civil disobedience, and the roots of terrorism. An Iowa State University professor and a University of Iowa professor gave speeches, but no faculty members from Drake were involved. The afternoon involved training in nonviolence for the protest the following day.

"I'm a law student," says Mr. Dunn. "I made it very clear that I couldn't be involved in anything that involved breaking the law." He did not attend the protest the next day.

Three months later, on February 3, he learned that Drake had received a federal grand-jury subpoena for the campus Lawyers Guild's records, requesting the identity of the group's officers, annual reports, and any information related to the November 15 conference and its participants.

It was "laughable," he says. "You don't need a subpoena to find out who we are. There are only about four to six of us on any given day. Everyone in the law school knows who we are. Drake is a pretty conservative school" -- a designation with which officials here agree.

The New York-based National Lawyers Guild is not conservative at all. With about 100 law-school chapters among its 6,000 members, it provides legal assistance to those who participate in progressive demonstrations throughout the country. In the McCarthy era, the group successfully fought efforts to put it on a list of "subversive" organizations.

In addition to Drake, the prosecutor served subpoenas on four local activists who attended the protest. "These are not armchair activists," says Mr. Dunn. "Two of them have been to Iraq. They have been involved in the peace-and-social-justice movement for many years. ... This was just an effort to chill and suppress this kind of speech." Mr. O'Meara, adds Mr. Dunn, "should be ashamed."

"This is what happens at universities," says David S. Walker, dean of Drake's law school, about the conference. "We have organizations that are conservative and organizations that are liberal. They associate. They talk. They debate. It's a very common exchange in the academic world."

Pacifists and 'Raging Grannies'

Sally B. Frank is no stranger to protest or to controversy.

The 45-year-old Drake law professor is the same Sally Frank who in 1979 complained that the three all-male eating clubs at Princeton University did not admit women. Thirteen years later, the case was resolved in her favor.

A seeming throwback to the '60s, on a gray day in Des Moines she is bright with buttons: "Stop the War Now," "Another Woman for Peace," "Celebrate Diversity," "Dissent Protects Democracy." They vie for attention with a gold Star of David that hangs from a chain around her neck. Her adopted daughter, Havah, who is 3, could say "no war" when she was only 2, she says proudly.

"I'm one of the only radical feminist Jewish New York lawyers in town," she says, laughing. Once a pariah at Princeton, she is now regarded as a heroine when she returns there for alumnae events. But it's unclear how accepted she is by her colleagues here at Drake. Seven years ago, she was denied tenure, fought it, and won.

Ms. Frank is the faculty adviser for Drake's chapter of the National Lawyers Guild. She has also represented many of the protesters who attended the November 16 demonstration, and was at the Guard headquarters as a legal observer, she says.

She and others describe this scene: About 60 protesters were met at the Guard headquarters by a line of 17 sheriff's deputies in full riot gear and 20 state troopers. Behind the fence were half a dozen National Guardsmen. ("They wouldn't have 17 in riot gear for an Iowa State football game," says Brian Terrell, one of the protesters and a nonviolence trainer.) The protesters had a permit for the demonstration, and the local police had been notified. Normally, the headquarters is not particularly secure. The Guard has no weapons depository there, and some of the local high schools use its gym for their proms.

Twelve of the protesters stepped over a painted pink line in the grass and were arrested. Eleven were charged with trespassing, a simple misdemeanor. One, a librarian from nearby Grinnell College, went limp and was charged with resisting arrest and misdemeanor assault. Three of those arrested were part of the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom, known locally as the "raging grannies." They are all grandmothers, mostly in their 70s and 80s, who wear hats and sing protest songs.

"These are clearly very dangerous people," says Ms. Frank. "You know you need riot gear to arrest an 80-year-old woman."

A press release from the prosecutor, issued several days after the furor arose over the subpoenas, asserted that the purpose of the investigation was to determine whether "there were any violations of federal law, or prior agreements to violate federal law, regarding unlawful entry onto military property -- and specifically to include whether there were any violations as a result of an alleged attempt to enter within the fenced, secure perimeter" of the Guard headquarters.

Any such attempt "is dangerous both to the person or persons attempting to breach the security fence, as well as a legitimately perceived danger to the base itself," the statement says.

It points out that one person did plead guilty to a criminal-trespass charge arising out of the protest.

Elton Davis, a peace activist who works at the Des Moines Catholic Worker House, says that on the day of the protest, he went to a gate a quarter of a mile from the rest of the protesters to talk to a guard. He wanted to tell someone at the headquarters about the right of Guard members to be conscientious objectors.

At the gate, Mr. Davis asked to see the commander and told him he would like to counsel members of the Guard. The commander, he says, "nearly fell down laughing. He obviously wasn't too threatened." Mr. Davis refused to leave the base and was arrested. After three days in jail, he pleaded guilty and was released with time served.

Mr. Davis was one of the four people who received a grand-jury subpoena. "It's incredible that they would want to bring us before a grand jury on a misdemeanor," he says. "It's like going mouse hunting with a cannon."

Some activists say they fear that the U.S. attorney's move was part of an effort to squelch antiwar protests in an election year. Last fall The New York Times reported that a confidential FBI memorandum advised local law-enforcement officials to report any suspicious activity at antiwar demonstrations to its counterterrorism squads. FBI officials told the Times that the effort was aimed at "extremist elements" and not at law-abiding protesters. But if the government is monitoring such events on and off campuses, activists ask, what is the impact on free expression for antiwar groups at universities?

Outrage and Apoplexy

Drake's provost returned to his office from a meeting on February 3 at about 3:30 p.m. On his chair, where his secretary puts important papers so they won't get buried on his desk, was a federal grand-jury subpoena.

It is not unusual for a university or college to receive subpoenas. Usually they are for personnel or student records that pertain to civil cases. A rare subpoena in a criminal case might be in connection with fraud on a student loan.

"I can only say that the initial response was one of disbelief," says Ronald J. Troyer, the provost. "We're all still struggling to make sense of this. ... Why this assault on the basic principles of the university?"

Mr. Troyer talked with David Walker, the law-school dean, who informed Ms. Frank of the subpoena. She, in turn, notified the National Lawyers Guild in New York.

David E. Maxwell, Drake's president, says there was never any question about turning over the records, but it was unclear exactly what the university had to do. "We always worked from the assumption that as an institution we had to comply with the law," he says. "But it seemed to us from the beginning that what we had been asked for was inappropriate."

Steven L. Serck, the university's outside lawyer, was notified. His first communication with the prosecutor's office, he says, was the following day: "I said, 'Look. This is student records. I'm not saying we're going to comply, but if we do, we have to inform the students.'"

The federal authorities, Mr. Serck says, were not aware that under the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act, the university had an obligation to tell the students so that they could get representation. "I can either tell them, or you can get an order of nondisclosure," he told the prosecutors.

The response? The following day the university was slapped with a gag order barring its administrators, faculty members, staff, or lawyers from talking about the subpoena, acknowledging that it existed, or notifying the students about it. If they defied the order, issued by Ronald E. Longstaff, a federal judge of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Iowa, they risked being cited for contempt of court.

The order was so broad that Ms. Frank had to go to court to ask that she be allowed to show her lawyer the subpoena.

After Mr. Serck talked with prosecutors, a second subpoena and gag order were issued replacing the first request for records. The new subpoena did not name the National Lawyers Guild, but sought records about the conference, including who requested the use of the room, any recordings that would identify those who attended, and security records that would reflect any "observations" made of the meeting.

But the broad gag order that followed Mr. Serck's conversation with the prosecutor meant that the university's hands were tied. The president couldn't talk with the trustees about the situation. He couldn't respond to inquiries from the press, from faculty members, from students. Nor could anyone else in the administration. The Des Moines Register was writing front-page articles each day based on statements from the National Lawyers Guild and the protesters who had been subpoenaed. And the university had no way to respond.

Over the weekend, Mr. Maxwell and Mr. Walker signed affidavits that were to be filed with the court on Monday, February 10, saying that they could not fulfill their obligations to the university because they were prohibited from talking about the subpoena. Mr. Serck worked furiously on motions to set aside the gag order and quash the new subpoena -- motions that had already been filed by the lawyers' guild. "We were going to argue that we had standing to protect the free-speech rights of our students," he says.

The telephones and e-mail boxes of Drake's president and law-school dean were flooded with messages from faculty members around the country who were worried about what the subpoenas might portend. "An open and free discourse is the core value of a university," says Mr. Maxwell. "We're supposed to be the place in society to discuss ideas -- unpopular ideas most of all, because popular ideas don't need protection."

"The world has changed post-9/11," says Sheldon E. Steinbach, vice president and general counsel of the American Council on Education, "but this was grossly mishandled by the U.S. attorney."

The original conference at Drake, which was deemed so unworthy of news that the student newspaper declined to cover it, had suddenly become a cause célèbre for free speech. Bill Moyers came out to interview Drake's president. A French television station called, saying they were doing a story on civil rights in the United States and wanted to come to Drake.

The Chicago Council of Lawyers was just one of many legal groups with no connection to Drake that issued its own statement: "The action in Iowa reminds us chillingly of the witch hunts of the 1950s. We must not allow a federal prosecutor to abridge constitutional rights under a cloak of national security."

But Mr. Serck was informed on Tuesday morning, February 11, that he did not need to file a motion to vacate the subpoena. The subpoena had been quashed. The gag order was withdrawn. Since Mr. O'Meara isn't talking, no one is quite sure why, although there is much speculation among faculty members that public pressure may have forced the Justice Department to call him off.

'Naming Names'

At Drake, the president of the Faculty Senate, Nancy C. Reincke, praised the actions of the administration in the case, saying in an e-mail message, "My impression is that faculty are both pleased and proud of the position you took and the principles you articulated on all our behalves."

Not everyone on the campus was so sanguine. Kathleen Ann Richardson, a professor of journalism, says the events left her "apoplectic for a week." She would have counseled the president and provost to call a press conference, she says, to wave the subpoenas around and declare that they refused to comply.

In retrospect, she says: "Who am I to say they should have stood up on their soapbox and risked being taken away in handcuffs? ... I can't really fault them for acting more cautiously." However, she says, she believes that administrators of colleges around the country should take this opportunity to look at the question and ask themselves how they would have responded.

Recently, on the still-snowy Drake campus, students and faculty members spilled out of the largest lecture hall in the law school. ("Supreme Court justices don't get this big a turnout," confided one law-school professor.) It had been billed as a forum on First Amendment rights. But the room was packed with people who wanted to hear university officials and law-school professors try to put the jumble of events following the subpoenas into perspective.

The collective frustration was perhaps best expressed by Robert C. Hunter, a professor of constitutional law at Drake, who told the crowd that when he first learned of the subpoenas, visions of Joseph McCarthy holding up a list of names rushed in. "Do we not learn anything from history in this country?" he asked, incredulous. "Do we not know the chilling effect of naming names, of asking what organizations you belong to?"

Mr. Maxwell seems only somewhat relieved that Drake's trials are apparently over. "At least in this instance, the system worked," he says. "But it struck at the heart of what this institution is." One of the most troubling questions, he concedes, is what if it happens again in a different situation? What if the protest that followed the campus meeting had turned violent?

"We hope we'll never have to answer that question," he says. "But that's the thing that we don't know."

WHAT HAPPENED AT DRAKE

November 15, 2003: The Drake University chapter of the National Lawyers Guild plays host to "Stop the Occupation! Bring the Iowa Guard Home!," a daylong conference in Des Moines. The meeting includes sessions that discuss the roots of terrorism and the American tradition of civil disobedience. An afternoon session focuses on nonviolence training and planning for a rally the following day.

November 16, 2003: About 60 protesters rally outside the Iowa National Guard's headquarters. Twelve are arrested.

February 3, 2004: A subpoena is served on Drake seeking records including those related to the scheduling of the conference, its purpose, and its participants; the identity of the officers of the Drake chapter of the National Lawyers Guild and their annual reports; and any records from campus security concerning the November 15 meeting.

February 3 and 5: Subpoenas are served on four local antiwar activists who were involved in the November conference and demonstration. A Polk County sheriff's deputy leaves a card identifying himself as a member of the Joint Terrorism Task Force.

February 5: Drake receives an order of nondisclosureoften called a gag orderfiled under court seal, ordering its administrators, lawyers, faculty, and staff members not to disclose the existence or contents of the first subpoena.

February 6: Drake receives a second subpoena that seeks records relating to the November 15 conference, including who scheduled it and requested the room, recordings that might identify those who attended, and campus-security records. The second subpoena replaces the first and does not request National Lawyers Guild records. The subpoena is accompanied by another gag order.

February 9: The university files affidavits by David E. Maxwell, Drake's president, and David S. Walker, the dean of the law school, saying that the gag orders are too broad and are preventing them from doing their jobs, which include talking to trustees, faculty members, and students about what is going on at the university.

An attorney for the National Lawyers Guild files court papers asking that government investigators be forced to explain why they need the subpoenaed records.

Stephen Patrick O'Meara, United States attorney for the southern district of Iowa, issues an unusual press release, confirming that a grand jury is investigating events that occurred at the National Guard headquarters. The investigation, however, is not an anti-terrorism matter and is not being conducted by the Joint Terrorism Task Force, he says. Rather, its purpose is to determine whether there were violations of federal law "or prior agreements to violate federal law" as a result of an apparent attempt to enter the fenced perimeter at the National Guard headquarters.

February 10: The court, at the request of Mr. O'Meara, withdraws the gag orders and quashes the subpoenas for the university and the peace activists.