Subsequently, he served as an intelligence officer for the U.S. Army following the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.
"[5] Keeney initiated a new admissions policy under which 10% of the places in Brown's freshman class (about 650 students) were reserved for youngsters whose grades ordinarily would not qualify them for an Ivy League college—but who exhibit some "outstanding characteristic".
[6] Brown built a hockey rink, soccer fields, baseball diamonds and other recreational and athletic facilities on the land.
[8] Although its close relationship with Brown allowed Tougaloo to reap financial and academic rewards including grants from the Ford Foundation, Keeney made sure that the college would "never again be at the center of civil rights activity" and used his influence to retire Dan Beittel from Tougaloo's presidency.
[9][10] In 1964 he stoutly defended his director of health services, Roswell Johnson, who had prescribed birth control pills for a handful of marriage-bound students at nearby Pembroke College (Brown University), Brown's female counterpart.
In 1963, Keeney served as Chair of the National Commission on the Humanities, organized by the American Council of Learned Societies, the Council of Graduate Schools in America, and the United Chapters of Phi Beta Kappa and tasked with studying "the state of the humanities in America".
In April 1964, the commission released a report recommending "the establishment...of a National Humanities Foundation".