SACUA discusses 'freedom lecture'

While the idea of "sexual McCarthyism" has been raised in the weeks leading to today's election, a rift between faculty and administration about the original Red Scare's effect on the University narrowed yesterday.

At a meeting of the Senate Advisory Committee on University Affairs, the faculty's governing board, members of the Academic Freedom Lecture Fund's Board of Directors discussed the possibility of reconciliation with the University.

"When we went to the (University Board of Regents) for funding in 1990, they told us to take a hike," said Peggie Hollingsworth, president of the AFLF's Board of Directors. "Because of SACUA's efforts, we have been able to receive contributions through the University without the hypocrisy of looking at a University receipt."

The AFLF was established after Senate Assembly and SACUA passed resolutions in 1989 and 1990 urging action to preserve academic freedom.

The fund sponsors the annual Davis, Markert, Nickerson Lecture Series, named after three former University instructors suspended for political reasons in 1954.

The House Subcommittee on Un-American Activities interrogated Chandler Davis, Clement Markert and Mark Nickerson, and the University eventually suspended the professors because of their suspected Communist beliefs during the anti-Communist paranoia.

University President Lee Bollinger recently offered financial support, endorsed by the regents, to the lecture series and blamed the incident on "an era of rabid intolerance by the University."

The apparent reversal of the administrative stance created what SACUA Chair and pharmacology Prof. William Ensminger called "a good time to put everything on the table."

"I believe the support is there, which is a change from 1990," Ensminger said. "There is an openness now."

Sociology Prof. Don Deskins echoed other SACUA members who said the AFLF's Board of Directors should consider becoming fully affiliated with the University to preserve the fund.

"Whatever we come out with would be a compromise, but we must look at what is going to happen when the founders of the fund are gone," Deskins said. "They will take their intent with them."

AFLF's directors have to weigh the benefits of remaining an independent corporation against those of institutionalizing for the sake of longevity.

"Our board would have to receive a thorough argument that this would be good for us," AFLF Treasurer Thomas Moore said.

There is also no guarantee the current environment of good will indicates an administrative desire to bring the fund "under its wing" in any official capacity.

SACUA and AFLF board members voiced concern about the separation of funds for academic freedom and a desired formal apology from the University for its actions in 1954.

"Unless we set up a clearly stated strategy that is broader than these three names, the goal of academic freedom will be lost as an institutional memory," said SACUA member and pathology Prof. Peter Ward.

The next in the series of annual AFLF lectures is set for March 15, 1999. It will set the stage for the 10th anniversary lecture in 2000, and pledges for the lecture's funding already exceed $200,000.

11-03-98