“Being Lucky”
Early in my career as president of Indiana University, I was invited to speak at a forum sponsored by the Senate Avenue YMCA in Indianapolis on education in a democracy. It was in 1939, just prior to the issuance of the classic statement on academic freedom and tenure by the American Association of University Professors (AAUP), and I began by proposing that the principle of academic freedom is basic to education in a democracy. I pointed out that
through all this more than a century, the university has actively worked for the preservation and advancement of American democracy by the method that is peculiarly the university’s own, namely, fearless inquiry into every subject in search of the truth—fearless inquiry, not only in the “safe” realm of the physical sciences, but in the social sciences as well, even though they deal with the stuff of which human emotions and passions are made.
It must be remembered that democratic principles and individual freedoms were at that time once again threatened as they had been in World War I. With more and more foreboding we read of the horrors and conquests of Hitler’s Nazi Germany, and many of America’s educational leaders began to fear a recurrence of the violation of the academic sphere that accompanied World War I. The AAUP statement came in 1940. By the fall of 1943 it was felt advisable that Indiana University’s consistent but unwritten policy on academic freedom be given formal expression, and on September 11, 1943, the Board of Trustees adopted the following statement, the first of its kind in the university’s history:
No restraint shall be placed upon the teacher’s freedom in investigation, unless restriction upon the amount of time devoted to it becomes necessary in order to prevent undue interference with other duties. No limitation shall be placed upon the teacher’s freedom in the exposition of his own subject in the classroom or in addresses and publications outside the classroom so long as the statements are not definitely antisocial. No teacher shall claim as his right the privilege of discussing in his classroom controversial topics obviously and clearly outside of his own field of study. The teacher is morally bound not to take advantage of his position by introduction into the classroom of provocative discussions of completely irrelevant subjects admittedly not within the field of his study. The university recognizes that the teacher, in speaking and writing outside the institution upon subjects beyond the scope of his own field of study, is entitled to precisely the same freedom, but is subject to the same responsibility, as attaches to all other citizens.
The exposition of the university’s tenure policy completed the statement.
Undoubtedly the greatest test of this principle of academic freedom resulted from some research that had been started in July, 1938, when Alfred C. Kinsey began the collection of sex histories from individuals. A respected biologist and Starred Man of Science, Dr. Kinsey became interested in the field of human sexuality when he discovered how little sex research was available to guide him in answering questions from his students. Employing the method of his longtime research on gall wasps’, taxonomy, he launched an ambitious project to collect 100,000 sex histories of individuals. He knew, of course, that he would encounter opposition in gathering material on a topic involving the intimate lives of people. As he described it:
There were attempts by the medical association in one city to bring suit on the ground that we were practicing medicine without a license, police interference in two or three cities, investigation by a sheriff in one rural area, and attempts to persuade the university’s administration to stop the study, or to prevent the publication of the results, or to dismiss the senior author from his university connection, or to establish a censorship over all publication emanating from the study . . . There were . . . threats of legal action, threats of political investigation, and threats of censorship, and for some years there was criticism from scientific colleagues . . . . Through all of this, the administration of Indiana University stoutly defended our right to do objectively scientific research, and to that defense much of the success of this project is due.1
For me, there was really no question about support of Kinsey’s research. I had early made up my mind that a university that bows to the wishes of a person, group, or segment of society is not free and that a state university in particular cannot expect to command the support of the public if it is the captive of any group. It must be a free agent to deserve the support of all the public, free of untoward influence from any group—business, church, labor, politics, and so on—and the only way to keep it free is to be willing to fight when necessary. We followed that policy, never yielding regardless of the pressures. It was not easy; there were hardships involved in sustaining this principle through public hearings, threats of legislative reprisal, and the disaffection of some faculty members who were squeamish about short-run consequences.
Observers of the American academic scene have called Indiana University’s winning of its battle to protect Kinsey’s Institute for Sex Research from those who would have eliminated it a landmark victory for academic freedom. So much has been written about this battle and the university’s participation in it that I need not recount the experience in detail.2 Rather, a few recollections of my own may be of interest.
In the very beginning I pointed out to the university trustees that the Kinsey study would be highly controversial and that we would be under great pressure to suppress it, but at that time I little realized the extent of the pressure that would come. In essence I told the board that Alfred Kinsey was a recognized scientist and that, although he was dealing with a highly emotional and explosive subject, he must be protected by the university and his right to carry on his research must be unimpaired if the university desired to be called a true university. Difficult and hard though this crucial test of the university’s integrity might be, should we fail it, all hope for the achievement of real university distinction would be lost. I am proud to record the fact that, although the individual members of the board and the board as a whole were harassed and subjected to all manner of pressure, they never once wavered in their support of our policy toward the Kinsey Institute. They did not waver even when the board of the Rockefeller Foundation finally decided that discretion was the better part of valor and withdrew its support from the project.
The Indianapolis Star (November 17, 1950) erupted shortly before a legislative session with a front-page story under the heading “‘Science’ Says Kinsey: ‘Dirty Stuff’ Says U.S.” The Indianapolis customs collector, Alden Baker, had opened a shipment of Japanese artwork and seventeenth-and eighteenth-century French miniatures that he had gratuitously shown to the press and allowed to be photographed. His action was, of course, illegal. The trustees met the next day and I reported to them that the governor and certain members of the legislature were greatly exercised. The governor had called me in midmorning after he had seen the Star. “Herman,” he had almost shouted, “what in the name of God do you mean by importing those dirty pictures?” I had tried to explain that one of the criticisms of Kinsey’s first book had been that it was too statistical, that it failed to take into account the emotional and aesthetic aspects of sex that could be found in art and literature, and that Kinsey, as a result, had been attempting to build a library of erotica from which to correct his alleged neglect of the senses in his account. Even though it had been difficult to interrupt the governor’s fuming for long, I had managed to point out that this material was to be used only by scholars in the field and would not be accessible to the public. The governor had continued to rage, growing more irate the longer he held forth. Finally, in desperation, I had said, “Governor, you are so angry, you’re not listening to me. When you cool off, I will talk to you.” With that, I hung up on him—the only time I have ever done such a thing and certainly then with considerable risk.
The Board of Trustees saw that I was still uneasy and in a quandary about the situation. To my surprise Merrill Davis, a board member, asked, “Do you mind if I attempt to handle this?” “Mind? I would be greatly relieved,” I answered. Dr. Davis was not only a highly successful surgeon and friend of the governor, he was an art connoisseur as well, competent to appraise artistic quality and to identify the erotic manifestations that are frequently overlooked in familiar, famous paintings. Not long afterward, armed with several books containing illustrations of master painters’ works that hang in the foremost museums, Dr. Davis called upon the governor. After a few pleasantries he said, as he later related, “Governor, I wish to show you some pictures I think you’ll recognize.” Then, leafing through the books, he began to point out the erotic details in each well-known painting. The governor, after observing and listening attentively for a few moments, suddenly grinned and said, “Oh, hell, Merrill. Get out of here!” And that was the last we heard from him about the Kinsey material.
Other members of the Board of Trustees spent endless hours then and at other times explaining the Kinsey project to irate friends, alumni, and legislators and absorbing a considerable amount of personal abuse. During this period we would discuss the latest developments in their meetings, exchange ideas, and regenerate our courage and resolve to continue the battle.
The general administrative officers of the university were always trying to think of ways and means by which we could present the Kinsey program constructively to the public and to marshal our friends both inside and outside the university, in the public, and in the press to assist in this defense. I would be remiss if I failed to mention the numbers of persons with no direct connection to Indiana University who, convinced of the university’s integrity and purpose, buoyed the spirits of the embattled university community. It was a great cooperative effort, and a part of the task of the central administrative offices was to keep that cooperative effort in place, alive and vigorous.
For the most part the members of the faculty were highly supportive, although there were those who were frightened that the university would suffer reprisals and be harmed by the project and others who were opposed to the study for a variety of reasons, some professional and some emotional.
The students were on the whole interested and cooperative, and I am sure they were a helpful influence in their contacts with parents and friends throughout the state and nation.
Although many alumni expressed concern, their concern for the most part was expressed in an appropriate and constructive manner, that is, by seeking information. A few attacked us emotionally and beyond reason. But it must be recorded that throughout this entire period no official organ of the Alumni Association moved in any way to interfere. In fact, the officers of the association were supportive throughout, even though I know it must have been extremely difficult for them to live with the constant pressure created by the publicity.
Many clergymen upheld the project in a quiet way and found the Kinsey studies helpful to them in counseling their parishioners. However, some openly attacked the university. One of the most vicious attacks was that of Jean Milner, the influential pastor of the Second Presbyterian Church in Indianapolis, which included among its membership quite a few of our important alumni and many of the leading citizens of Indianapolis. In fact, Dr. Milner had more members of the power structure of the state—political, economic, and social—in his congregation than was true of any other church. He hurled a bitter broadside, even though confessing that he had not read the studies and did not intend to. Perhaps this confession blunted his criticism a little bit, but it was nonetheless a cruel blow. Almost the entire Catholic hierarchy, the Archbishop of Indianapolis, and the Catholic press were uniformly critical. The most direct attack was made by the state division of the National Council of Catholic Women; their letter and my reply, which includes my earlier, official statement in support of the project, give some sense of the intensity of the battle:
August 24, 1953
Dr. Herman B Wells, A.M., LL.D.
President, Indiana University
Bloomington, Indiana
Dear Dr. Wells:
In the name of more than 150,000 women—most of them mothers, many of them with sons and daughters of college age—we, the Indiana Provincial Council of Catholic Women, seek some reassurance from you that Indiana University is still a place fit for the educating of the youth of our State.
How representative of Indiana University is the thinking of Dr. Alfred Kinsey? We have not, of course, read his latest book, but we have seen the sensational reports on it in magazines and newspapers, and these are frightening, indeed. Almost without exception, the writers, who have carefully studied Dr. Kinsey’s book and have been thoroughly briefed by him, come to the conclusion that the Indiana professor considers our present sexual morals for the most part to be superstitious notions of an unenlightened and uncritical past. How dangerous such a teaching can be should be evident to you, Dr. Wells, as you know from many years of experience how difficult it is for youths to master themselves and learn to accept the demands that society imposes upon them.
But what of the practical conclusions young people themselves will draw from reading press accounts of the latest Kinsey report? A man presented to them by Indiana University as a distinguished scientist seems to advise them that to follow the accepted morals may lead them into preversions [sic] and that the chances for happiness in marriage may be in direct proportion to the amount of sexual experience they have as teenagers. What will our youth make of this?
If you, Dr. Wells, do not recognize how dangerous it is to popularize incendiary suggestions like these, we tremble at what may happen to our sons and daughters entrusted to the care of Indiana University? For we acknowledge that in the past we have been happy in the assurance that whatever strange ideas individual professors may have propagated, you and the other authorities of the university staunchly supported Christian morality. We were shocked, therefore, to learn that you support Dr. Kinsey.
Convinced, however, that you cannot agree with his philosophy, we request a clarification. Will our sons and daughters be exposed to the ideas of Dr. Kinsey? Dare we risk placing them in the charge of a university that seems to be willing to degrade science for the sake of sensational publicity?
However far from the morals of our forefathers many Americans have strayed, most of us have steadfastly held that their ideals must remain our ideals, if we are to preserve our American way of life. Those ideals of the dignity and rights of man sprang from the firm conviction that there is a moral law determined by God. In recent years we have seen in Nazi Germany what can happen to men when the traditional idea of moral law is questioned and then scoffed at. Dr. Kinsey questions the worth of Christian morality; he comes close to scoffing at it. Does he represent your thought, Dr. Wells? Does he represent the thought of Indiana University?
We include among our numbers the mothers of no small segment of the student personnel of Indiana University and are, therefore, quite naturally perturbed at the thought that Dr. Kinsey’s philosophy become the accepted ethics of the classroom and cam pus of the university. We are appalled at the suggestion that premarital sex experience will make for a more happy married life. We are convinced that God is still the author and vindicator of the commandments and that, the pseudo-scientific deductions of Dr. Kinsey notwithstanding, a deliberate indulgence in the forbidden fruit may bring a passing sordid pleasure but it can never be the source of happiness.
As women interested in preserving our American way of life, as mothers anxious for the welfare of our sons and daughters, we seek the reassurance only you can give.
Mrs. Harold D. Brady
Indiana Provincial Director
National Council of Catholic Women
Mrs. Alfred C. Brown
President of the Indianapolis
Archdiocesan Council
of Catholic Women
September 2, 1953
Mrs. Alfred C. Brown, President
Indianapolis Archdiocesan Council of Catholic Women
Brookville, Indiana
Dear Mrs. Brown:
I am in receipt of the letter of August 24th signed by you and Mrs. Harold D. Brady in your respective official capacities in the National Council of Catholic Women.
In reply, I wish first to assure you that I have the highest respect and regard for the National Council of Catholic Women and its effective work and outstanding services. Therefore, I am happy to reply to your inquiry.
You ask for a clarification of the University’s support of Dr. Alfred C. Kinsey’s scientific research project. Perhaps you have not had an opportunity to read the entire statement issued August 21st in this respect, which said:
“Indiana University stands today, as it has for fifteen years, firmly in support of the scientific research project that has been undertaken and is being carried on by one of its eminent biological scientists, Dr. Alfred C. Kinsey.
“The University believes that the human race has been able to make progress because individuals have been free to investigate all aspects of life. It further believes that only through scientific knowledge so gained can we find the cures for the emotional and social maladies in our society.
“In support of Dr. Kinsey’s research the University is proud to have as co-sponsor the National Research Council and its distinguished committee of scientists and physicians in charge of studies of this nature. With the chairman of that committee I agree in saying that we have large faith in the values of knowledge, little faith in ignorance.”
The University never approves or disapproves the research findings of its experimental scientists. This is just as true of popular as of unpopular results. The verdict as to the validity of any finding can only be given by professional workers in the same field who subject all findings to continued examination, checking, and additional research. This final verdict frequently takes many years, perhaps decades.
The endorsement given by the University to the research project in question, or to any other, concerns the right of the scientist to investigate every aspect of life in the belief that knowledge, rather than ignorance, will assist mankind in the slow and painful development toward a more perfect society. To deny this right and this objective would seem to deny the belief in a divine order as it pertains to men and the universe.
This same conviction, I am sure, motivated the eminent scientists of the National Research Council, an agency of the National Academy of Sciences. The Council not only has approved, but provides, the greater portion of the supporting funds for the Kinsey project. Moreover, it has provided for the project an advisory committee consisting of these distinguished scientists and physicians: George W. Corner, M.D., Chairman, Director, Department of Embryology, Carnegie Institution of Washington; Willard M. Allen, M.D., Professor of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Washington University, St. Louis; Clyde L. Kluckhohn, Ph.D., Professor of Anthropology, Harvard University; Karl S. Lashley, Ph.D., Professor of Psychology, Harvard University, and Director, Yerkes Laboratories for Primate Biology, Orange Park, Florida; C. N. H. Long, D.Sc., M.D., Professor of Physiological Chemistry, Yale University; Carl R. Moore, Ph.D., Professor of Zoology, University of Chicago; James V. Neel, Ph.D., M.D., Geneticist, Laboratory of Vertebrate Zoology, University of Michigan; and Milton C. Winternitz, M.D., ex officio Director, Division of Medical Sciences, National Research Council.
The search for truth is one function of all universities. Another function is teaching. Dr. Kinsey’s research project is entirely divorced from the University’s teaching function and he and his colleagues are assigned full time to research duties.
The University is proud of its teaching record. Last June it graduated 2,615 young men and women. This group, those who preceded them, and those yet to come will stand comparison with the graduates of any institution in the country as to morals, ideals, high-minded purpose, and integrity. This, I assume, you will not question. This the University will defend against any attack.
The churches, including yours, have contributed to this proud record of the University. On every Sunday during the school year there is a vast outpouring of students of the University into the churches of the community, crowding them to capacity and in some instances requiring several services for their accommodation.
The University has encouraged and invited the development of religious facilities adjacent to the campus in order that its students might have the continuing benefit of the spiritual guidance of their respective churches. The University is grateful to the churches of Indiana that they have responded to its invitation and desires to express through you great gratitude to the Catholics of Indiana for the beautiful new Catholic Church in Bloomington near the campus for the benefit of the student body.
I trust that what I have said will give you the reassurance which you sought with regard to Indiana University.
Cordially yours,
H. B Wells
This was not the first time Indiana University had been criticized by clergy and church representatives in a formidable manner. During his years at the university David Starr Jordan espoused the Darwinian theory of the evolution of the species and was bitterly attacked by the clergy of Indiana, but he did not yield. Instead he continued to stump the state and by overcoming his opponents established a precedent that helped to sustain us in the Kinsey battle. It is difficult now to make vivid the steady national uproar that continued over a number of years as the Kinsey studies unfolded. But throughout we benefited from the sensitive cooperation of the embattled Kinsey, who, although he could be dogmatic and bitter in his counterattack and rightfully so, nevertheless cooperated with us in the many efforts that we made to see that the study was presented in the best possible light.
Great time and effort were devoted to the handling of the publicity with reference to the studies: the publication of the major studies was timed to follow shortly after a legislative session so that there would be a long cooling-off period before the next session started; and Kinsey helped by receiving delegations of legislators, showing them through his laboratory, and explaining his research procedures. We made it a policy to invite the bipartisan and influential State Budget Committee in its annual visit to the campus to tour the Kinsey Institute. The fact that this committee had visited the institute and found it to be not a den of iniquity but a highly antiseptic, scientific laboratory and the professionalism of Dr. Kinsey’s own presentation to the committee were especially beneficial. I am confident that Dr. Kinsey’s willingness to cooperate in various ways in handling the delicate public-relations problems posed by the study was a major factor in winning the battle. Without his help it could not have been done.
When we were unable to get the federal government to release the materials for the institute’s library that had been impounded by Customs in Indianapolis, it became necessary to bring suit against the government. The Board of Trustees took the extraordinary action of volunteering to hire outstanding counsel for the university to appear with the Kinsey Institute as amicus curiae in challenging the government’s policy. It was our great good fortune to be able to enlist at that time the state’s most prestigious law firm—Barnes, Hickam, Pantzer and Boyd—to represent the university, and the case was assigned to the senior partner in charge of trial work, Hubert Hickam, an alumnus of the university. The firm had not accepted cases of this type previously but agreed to participate in the suit on an actual-cost basis. Later, members of the firm termed it one of the most interesting cases the firm had ever handled.3 In my judgment, the trustees’ action in this instance is among the proudest moments in the annals of the Indiana University Board of Trustees and in the history of Indiana University.
Because of the long duration of the pressure, because of its immensity, heat, and bitterness, I am sure that the whole university community from time to time wished the controversy could be ended. Looking back over the experience, I am now convinced that the importance we attached to the defense of the Kinsey Institute was not exaggerated. Time has proved that the defense was important, not only for the understanding of sexual activity, but also for the welfare of the university. It reinforced the faculty’s sense of freedom to carry on their work without fear of interference, and it established in the public mind the fact that the university had an integrity that could not be bought, pressured, or subverted. I feel that the stand enormously increased the respect people had for the university, even those people who were bitter opponents of the Kinsey project. Over time, for a university’s reputation nothing rivals courage, integrity, and impartiality in the protection of its scholars.
One sidelight on the story of the Kinsey battle that may be of interest occurred at the time of the fiftieth-anniversary celebration of the Rockefeller Foundation. The occasion, a formal affair, was held in the magnificent ballroom of the Plaza Hotel in New York City. All the Rockefeller brothers were present as was Dean Rusk, then U.S. Secretary of State, who had come from Washington to be the principal speaker. A great array of scholars from all over the world was present for the elegant, formal dinner. I was seated next to Robert Sproul, at the time recently retired from the presidency of the University of California. Looking about the room I tried to discover a clue to the guest list, since most of the guests for that kind of an affair are invited on the basis of a particular rationale. Neither Bob Sproul nor I knew why we were there. As we studied the crowd further, however, we came to the conclusion that the guest list for the most part had been made up of men who had conducted important scholarly activity for the Rockefeller Foundation through its first half-century and of representatives of institutions associated with important Rockefeller Foundation projects. At the end of the dinner I happened to see Robert Morison, head of the medical division of the Rockefeller Foundation, and told him of our discussion about the guest list. He confirmed the general hypothesis, adding, “Of course you were invited because the Rockefeller Foundation helped launch the Kinsey study.” He continued, “Our medical division was asked to select its most significant projects in the past fifty years. I asked one of our young men to go back through the records and come up with a list. In due course he brought me the papers on the Kinsey Institute and asked, ‘Does this rate as one of our important ones?’” Dr. Morison recounted that he had on his desk at that moment the latest textbook in gynecology, an excellent work. “I turned to a certain chapter and told the young man, ‘This could not have been written before the Kinsey Institute studies. Does that give you your answer?’ The young man responded with a smile, ‘I think it does.’” Dr. Morison concluded, “We consider the Kinsey Institute one of the most important projects that our medical division has supported.”
It is sometimes said that academic freedom can be maintained for faculty in private institutions alone. My own belief is that a state university not only has a greater need to be a free institution but also has the opportunity with proper leadership to become the freest of all academic institutions. A state university has responsibility to every segment of its society because it is supported through taxes by every segment of the state. Hence it has the same accountability to the Catholics that it has to the Protestants. It has the same obligation to business as it has to labor. It has the same responsibility to farmers as it does to manufacturers. Each sector of society is typically alert to any show of bias toward other sectors by a state university. With the pressures for recognition and service coming from everywhere, the public institution can be free and impartial because of these balanced forces. If the manufacturers pressure, for example, labor is a countervailing pressure. Under proper management and leadership the counterbalancing forces serve to offset one another and thereby to create in the center a vacuum of neutrality and freedom that makes it easier for a public institution to protect academic freedom than for a private institution to do so. Furthermore, since all the citizens of the state support the public institution through their taxes, it would be immoral for the university to favor one group over another.
I consider that the crucial questions of academic freedom raised during my presidency were related, first, to the Kinsey study and all its aspects, including the importation of erotic materials; second, to the recurring attacks by the American Legion and others against the university, culminating in the Legion’s demand for investigation of the infiltration of the university by Communists, a charge that resulted from an informal petition signed by professors Bernard Gavit, Fowler Harper, and Howard Mann to the Indiana Board of Election Commissioners stating that, if the petition filed by the Communist Party (to be on the ballot) fulfilled the statutory requirements, it would be a mistake arbitrarily to refuse placement on the ballot; third, to attacks leveled against us over the development of the Russian and East European Studies program and specifically the importation of library materials essential to that study; and finally, to the attacks on us at the time of the importation of fugitive library materials dealing with the Hitler period in Germany while Professor Leonard Lundin and perhaps others were studying the Fascist phenomenon in Germany and elsewhere in Europe.4
Much was made of a stir in the mid-1950s, popularly known as the Green Feather incident, which I did not then nor do I now consider an issue of academic freedom. A small group of students with the commendable aim, in my judgment, of attacking the position of Senator Joseph McCarthy and McCarthyism generally sought to gain student support. Identifying themselves with Robin Hood’s Merry Men, they made green feathers their symbol. In the course of their one-issue campaign they ran afoul of university regulations concerning recognition of student organizations and concerning political speakers on campus. Campuses in those days were not so open as they are now, and student activities were subject to many more regulations; since the 1960s changes have come about that make the situation in the 1950s difficult for present-day students to understand. In the case of the Green Feather incident, there was what many considered a righteous cause on the one hand, and on the other were regulations that, if waived or breached by the administration, would have been on behalf of the cause, thus destroying the university’s neutrality.
It is essential for the university as a corporate body to be completely neutral with regard to controversial public issues. By its neutrality it is strengthened in its ability to defend the freedom of the members of the university community to express their views in accordance with the established principles of academic freedom. Again and again I have seen universities get trapped into surrendering that position, greatly limiting their ability thereafter to take the position that the university provides a neutral and unbiased forum for the presentation of all points of view. In my judgment, in the so-called Green Feather case, the issue was contrived with the ulterior motive of trying to force the university to go on record for or against Senator McCarthy. There was good and sufficient evidence that forces off campus were manipulating the students in order to bring this about. I have no patience with an attempt of this kind to destroy the neutrality of the university even though, as in this case, I may happen to be personally in sympathy with the cause.
It is to be noted, however, that in the 1960s the same kinds of pressures to politicize were brought upon the university. Unfortunately, in some instances a number of faculty members joined in the pressure, urging a moral position as justification for the surrender of the university’s neutrality. It has to be remembered that, in addition to the damage that the university’s taking sides on controversial issues would do to its ability to defend its own position of neutrality and to protect thereby the academic freedom of faculty members, by taking a point of view on a controversial subject the university would make it extremely difficult for impartial research to be done on that issue in the future. It is the keystone of university policy that a faculty member is free to do research on any subject that he has the competence and interest to pursue. That freedom would be inhibited by the adoption of an official university dogma on controversial questions.
INCIDENT DURING MY INTERIM PRESIDENCY
The controversial issues of the 1960s had heated to a mounting agitation by the time I undertook the interim presidency in the fall of 1968. Very early some student activists sought to try me by confrontation over their “demands,” based on largely spurious charges against the university. In effect they wanted all traces of the military removed from the campus: no R.O.T.C., no recruiting, no defense contracts, no police training, no “security” surveillance of student political activity. To their vague and sweeping insinuations that Indiana University was fostering secret research for the war effort, we replied that we did not accept government funds for classified research, that faculty research funded by the U.S. Department of Defense was in each case initiated by a grant proposal from the faculty member to further his own particular research interest, and that the results were publishable and therefore in the public domain. The militant students tried without success to refute our answers and continued their propaganda bombardment, hoping to force the university to terminate government-supported research. Their effort was a clear challenge to the freedom of inquiry, without which a true university cannot exist. Through the years I had had to defend academic freedom from attack by forces of the right, but this attack came from the opposite direction, the extreme left.
My first impulse had been to accept their request for a public appearance to answer their questions. The dean of students and our security officers objected, saying that the agitators would attend with bull horns and other disruptive noisemakers and make it impossible for me to be heard. It was suggested that instead we make a complete response, including a statement of university policy on freedom of research, and publish the whole in the campus newspaper, thus speaking directly to the entire university community. My colleagues and I worked hard to draft a comprehensive but unyielding statement, which was published and received a warm response from everyone except the agitators. So far as the research issue was concerned, it was settled. I am very proud of the document, which appears in the Appendix (H).
At the beginning of the agitation, I did meet informally with some of the activist students in front of the Administration Building and again in my office. I made no progress on either occasion, and I am sure that the course we followed was the wise one or at least the better part of valor. Still, I shall always wonder if I might not have faced the propagandists down in a large meeting, had I tried.
SOME THOUGHTS ON TENURE
Currently it is faddish on campuses to decry tenure. The general public has always viewed tenure with suspicion, frequently charging that tenure serves to protect the lazy and the incompetent. But now even some young faculty members have joined the call for abolition of tenure. They do so, I fear, for shortsighted reasons and without realizing the ultimate consequences of such a step.
I am a firm believer in the system of academic tenure that obtains in all reputable universities in America. I believe a strong tenure policy is essential to the attraction of first-rate faculty members. Moreover, the customary rules by which tenure is attained give the academic community the best possible method, if scrupulously observed, to determine a young scholar’s promise and personal compatibility with colleagues. Once tenure is granted them faculty members can make long-range plans for their research and personal development instead of dissipating their energies and abilities in a constant search for jobs.
I would have been very reluctant to be president of any state university that lacked a firmly fixed tenure policy. In fact, the development of such a policy was one of the first matters with which I concerned myself when I became president of Indiana University. Time proved this initiative invaluable to me in carrying out my responsibility toward the faculty during periods of stress.
We live in a volatile world. Issues arise that are highly charged with emotion. For many of them there are university experts—the best informed authorities in the fields related to the controversy—who can shed light on the subject and must do so, but in the heat of the moment opponents of their views may resort to demanding their dismissal. The administrator would first defend his beleaguered colleagues on the grounds of their merit and integrity as scholars, but sometimes passions are so aroused that he may find it necessary at last to raise the point of life tenure as an invulnerable defense. The protection that tenure affords the scholar in such an extreme is reason enough for its retention. To maintain their integrity and their usefulness to society, universities must have this tool that makes academic freedom possible.
There are those who think that the forces of ignorance and intolerance and the enemies of academic freedom are dead. It is true that we have had relative freedom from the extremes of those forces in recent years, but they are only dormant, not dead—in hibernation at the moment. For those who are unaware of the enormity of the battles for academic freedom in which Indiana University has been engaged, I would commend to them the reading of volume three (1977) of Thomas D. Clark’s history, Indiana University: Midwestern Pioneer, particularly chapter ten, “Sexual Behavior and the Kinsey Perspective,” and chapter eleven, “In Pursuit of the Unicorn,” which covers the McCarthy era and the continuing charges against the university of Communist activity during that period. Readers might then turn to chapter twelve in volume two (1973), which deals with the Ku Klux Klan’s threats to the integrity of the university that were met in an earlier period under the leadership of President Bryan.
Having stated these convictions, I should probably comment on an argument that is used by some young colleagues who would rescind the tenure policy, the argument that because of tenure faculty members are retained beyond their productive years to the detriment of the university. Faculty members’ careers peak at different times, unrelated to the moment of attaining tenure or of reaching a particular age. What we may forget is that on either side of the peak, not just on the side of descent, the performance of an individual will be lacking in some respects. Quite possibly there is a trade-off: wisdom for callowness, perspective for inexperience.
Quite aside from the hard question of establishing fitness, the argument as to productivity needs to be viewed from another perspective. The security of tenure has less effect upon productivity in a professional group such as academicians than contractual security is likely to have in other areas of employment. Faculty members are highly sensitive to the judgment of their scholarship by their colleagues. The need of this professional regard in almost every case acts as a stimulus to the older professor to carry on at as high a level of achievement as is possible long after persons in other fields would have begun to accept the lessening of their physical and intellectual powers.
The university traditionally upholds the ideal of human values in society. One would expect that the university, having had the benefit of the services of men and women at their peak, would retain them in their waning years. It is the totality of their service that should determine the reckoning.
RELATION TO HEALTH OF ECONOMIC SYSTEM
Our founding fathers believed that freedom of thought and expression was essential to the development of our political system. This freedom is equally essential to the maintenance of the health and vitality of our economic system. Advances are made in the free enterprise system because talented individuals think the unthinkable and attempt the impossible: management makes advances only when it finds new ideas and new ways in which to direct the enterprise. Competition in manufacturing is sharpened by the ability of individual entrepreneurs to devise new and more efficient ways of functioning. In the beginning of the automobile industry, Henry Ford’s revolutionary ideas not only made the mass-produced automobile possible but, and even more important, profoundly influenced every type of manufacturing. It is nearly a first principle of marketing that efforts must continuously be stimulated by new and fresh ideas. Indeed, successful companies regularly seek suggestions for improvement in their operating efficiency from those most familiar with the processes, their employees.
New ideas can much more readily be accepted in a free, competitive economy than in an economy that is nationally and centrally controlled by the state. The realities of the marketplace force their acceptance. An economy that is to be vital, competitive, and therefore increasingly productive must be fueled by fresh ideas, and those fresh ideas must be allowed to compete in a marketplace of commerce as well as in the marketplace of ideas in the university. Anything less than this results in a static, regressive economic state. Thus freedom of expression, freedom of ideas are essential to the maintenance of the vitality of the intellectual community and equally essential to the maintenance of the vitality of the economic community.
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1. Alfred C. Kinsey, Wardell B. Pomeroy, Clyde E. Martin, Sexual Behavior in the Human Male (Philadelphia: W. B. Saunders, 1948), pp. 11–12.
2. See Thomas D. Clark, Indiana University: Midwestern Pioneer, vol. 3, Years of Fulfillment (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1977), ch. 10.
3. The Institute employed Harriet Pilpel, a partner in the firm of Greenbaum, Wolff and Ernst, to present it. The Institute received a favorable judgment, a decision important to the whole scholarly community.
4. The Federal Bureau of Narcotics asked the university, from time to time, to restrict Professor Alfred Lindesmith’s research into drug addiction and to suppress publication of his findings. We of course refused all such requests. Although the pressure was great, taking several forms or approaches, the issue never became a matter of wide public controversy.
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