Academic Freedom and the Federal Government

¹ National Academy of Sciences

To summarize, it is my personal opinion that the decision of the federal government to give support to our universities on a large scale after the war has been enormously beneficial both to the universities and to our country at large. It has kept the universities viable and has placed them in a far better position to handle the difficult problems that they will face in the future of dispensing higher education of quality on a mass level. There have obviously been substantial flaws in the system. None of these, however, has been fatal. All can be remedied with the proper application of intelligence and patience. The project system that worked so effectively in the war has been used successfully for about a decade and a half after the war but is now beginning to lose its effectiveness as the agencies and Congress become diverted by the glamour of big science. It is my personal opinion that the only effective remedy is to put more and more of the money for independent investigators into institutional grants to be dispersed internally by the universities themselves.

It is clear that the time has come when the federal government can enhance the health of the universities further by providing support for the social sciences and humanities. For several good reasons, it seems to me that it would be wise to initiate such support on an institutional rather than a project basis from the start, and thereby avoid some of the problems which the natural sciences now face.

I realize that some of you will feel that I have adopted far too pragmatic a view of government-university relations in this presentation and have not focused sufficiently on some of the more intangible aspects of university life, such as those related to academic freedom and free speech. The simple truth of the matter is that in my own experience I have not found any desire on the part of officers of the Federal agencies to interfere with the university in connection with these more intangible aspects of academic life. It seems to me that the universities have as much leeway to establish and maintain their traditions as they did before the war. Any flaws that exist as a result of the flow of federal money lie for the most part at the doorsteps of the institutions and of those who tenant them.