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	Events in recent years raise novel issues of academic freedom at
Stanford University.

	In the past issues of academic freedom have arisen in connection
with the actions of authorities external to universities or the governing
bodies of universities.  Some of these actions have been seen and resisted
as infringing on freedoms for scholars and scientists that are necessary
for their activities expressing the collective curiosity of
humanity.

	We don't remember such issues arising at Stanford in the recent
past where the actions of external bodies are in question.  This is partly
because both governmental bodies and boards of trustees have given up
attempts to influence what is said, published and taught and delegated
personnel decisions mainly to the faculties themselves.  (We insist that
Bruce Franklin was properly fired for inciting riot.  I believe that he
did much worse and was substantially responsible for several murders
including the one for which Andrea Holman and others were convicted).

	Unfortunately, this wise behavior doesn't completely solve the
problem of academic freedom, because it is possible for the faculties
themselves to engage in oppressive behavior.  Some members of faculties
find the views of others offensive and undertake to suppress their
expression in various ways.  Naturally they don't see what they are trying
to do as violations of academic freedom.

	To a substantial extent this is because the traditional violations
of academic freedom involved the political right interfering with the
academic freedom of professors on the left.  The 1940 case at CCNY when
Bertrand Russell was denied an appointment to teach mathematical logic
explicitly because of his views on peace and sex is the classical example.
This has led many people to be alert mainly
to those violations of academic freedom
in which the right does something to the left.  Today these are mainly
to be found in other countries.

	However, recent events at Stanford raise the question of whether
the political left, as represented by a substantial segment of faculty and
student opinion, is attempting to interfere with the academic freedom of
faculty whose views are to the right of their own.  I cite three issues,
each of which seems to me to have this characteristic.

	1. The attack on the Hoover Institution has involved lists of
books and articles which the attackers find offensive.

	2. The objections to the Livermore financed extension to the SSRL
facility at SLAC involve an attempt to have Stanford take the position
that U.S. Government nuclear weapons research is illegitimate and that
Stanford faculty should not be allowed to participate in a facility in
which non-Stanford researchers carry on unclassified research which
will aid their work on weapons elsewhere.

	3. Some years ago William Shockley's attempts to teach a graduate
special course expressing his views on the genetics of intelligence were
frustrated at a time when anyone else was being allowed to give courses on
just about anything.  The statements by the members of the
committee appointed to look into
the matter and by the Dean of the Graduate School were masterpieces of
intellectual gerrymandering in which other criteria were found to justify
suppressing Shockley expressing his views.  Incidentally, the views
in question were freely misrepresented.

	In each of the above three cases it was claimed that the real
issue had nothing to do with academic freedom.  This is always possible by
some process of intellectual gerrymandering.  A criterion can always be
found for rejecting an attempt to express certain opinions that are
irrelevant from the content of the opinions.  In our opinion the arguments
in each case were largely irrelevant to the real issue.

	It seems to us that the basic cause of the problem is intense
political partisanship and an inability to understand that it is not
proper to vote one's politics when doing so suppresses the academic
freedom of fellow professors.

	For these reasons we propose that the Senate of the
Academic Council initiate and sponsor a debate on academic freedom at
Stanford today.  There is no need to tie the debate to a specific decision
before the Senate, and there is no reason to hold the debate in the form
of Senate meetings.  The specific issue should be the extent of the
obligation of the Faculty itself to avoid violations of academic freedom
and what actions by a Faculty would constitute such violations.