AROUND HIGHER EDUCATION: U. Mich: Support intellectual freedom

ANN ARBOR, Mich. (U-WIRE) -- Forty-four years after the infamous suspension of three university professors surrounded by speculation about their Communist sympathies, university President Lee Bollinger, endorsed by the University Board of Regents, has finally offered financial support to the annual Davis, Markert and Nickerson Lecture Series on Academic and Intellectual Freedom. While this sort acknowledgement of prior bad practice is good, the university still has many amends to make for ignoring the issue for decades. In 1954, former university professors Chandler Davis, Clement Markert and Mark Nickerson refused to testify about their political beliefs before the House Committee on Un-American Activities. As a result, the university suspended all three and eventually fired two of them. Former U.S. Sen. Joseph McCarthy led the infamous Communist witch hunt at the height of the Red Scare in the 1950s, unjustly misleading a fearful and threatened American public. While the ethos and events of the time made such fear common, it does not excuse the administration's suspension and dismissal of the professors. The university must maintain a strong sense of individual academic freedom and prevent contemporary political beliefs from throwing its integrity to the wind. In 1989, the Senate Assembly and the Senate Advisory Committee on University Affairs, the faculty's chief governmental bodies, passed resolutions pushing to maintain academic freedom through a lecture series. In 1990, the Academic Freedom Lecture Fund asked the regents for financial support, but was rebuked by administrators. SACUA made it possible for the AFLF to receive contributions from various university-related sources, heroically keeping the lecture series afloat. At a recent SACUA meeting, members of the Lecture Fund's Board of Directors finally began to discuss reconciliation with the university. By becoming affiliated with the university, the fund will be preserved, but the fund's leaders remain skeptical of the university's newfound support. Such skepticism is reasonable considering the past actions of the administration on this matter -- since the university evidently does not feel that this issue is a current problem, it has failed to even give it much notice. While the proposed financial support of the fund is commendable, SACUA and AFLF are still waiting for an official apology from the university, which would signify acknowledgment of the embarrassment endured by the three professors as well as show that the university is capable of learning from its mistakes. The university's attempt to amend its past mistakes is a step in the right direction, but it will take more than a simple monetary offer to gain the trust of the fund's leadership. In addition, a written apology and statement acknowledging the error should be issued by the administration and the regents. This is a good time for SACUA and AFLF due to the administration's apparent change of heart. The recent prospects for support and communication will open many doors for the fund and its goal of academic freedom. But this remains but a first step -- the administration should continue to show that it realizes its prior bad acts and make amends for four decades worth of ignorance.