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.cb THE PETITION TO INVESTIGATE THE HOOVER INSTITUTION

	More than 60 faculty and about 1500 other "members
of the Stanford community" have signed petitions
asking the Academic Senate to ask the Board of Trustees to
investigate the relations between the Hoover Institution
and Stanford with a view to making changes.  Associated with
the petitions have been charges that the Hoover Institution
is a right wing political institution and reflects discredit
on Stanford and may even jeopardize its tax exemption.
The associated propaganda lists books and reports and lists
individuals who have been prominent as conservatives and
prominent as advisers to President Reagan both before and
after he took office.

	While the political charges are given a prominent
place, the sponsors of the petitions claim that politics
is not their motivation and that they would be equally
concerned if the bias they claim exists were liberal rather
than conservative.  They therefore claim that academic
freedom is not an issue.

	Defenders of the Hoover Insitution have
pointed out the number of liberals and Democrats in various
Hoover positions and claim these show the Hoover is unbiased.


THE ISSUE IS ACADEMIC FREEDOM

	In spite of the disclaimers, the issue
really is academic freedom.

	Stripping off the camouflage about
the organizational structure of the relationship, the fact
is that a substantial number of faculty and students disagree
with many prominent reports, books and papers that have come
from scholars affiliated with the Hoover Institution and want
them stopped.  They rightly believe that ideas developed by
Hoover scholars played a significant role in the Republican
victory in 1980 and in the subsequent policies of the Reagan
Administration.  Similarly, ideas from the academic world,
most prominently Harvard University, were important in Kennedy's
1960 victory and the policies of subsequent Democratic administrations.
The contribution of academic scholars associated with various
political points of view have often alleviated the tendencies
of politics to become a totally unintellectual power struggle.

	Since their views are different from those for which
the Hoover scholars have become well known, they are entirely
within their rights to oppose them.  This right includes criticism
of individual reports, books and public statements.  It even
includes criticism of the Hoover scholars as a group, although
group criticism is often unfair.  There is a legal right to be unfair
in speech and writing even though there is not a moral right.

	However, they are wrong to use charges of institutional
anomaly to suppress views with which they disagree and to
intimidate these scholars and the Hoover Institution itself.
Stanford University has a responsibility to resist attacks on the
academic freedom of Hoover scholars just as strong as its
responsibility to protect the academic freedom of scholars of
the left.


WHY NOW?

	The Hoover Institution has existed since 1947, and
its relation to Stanford has evolved over time.  Why is 1983
the year in which the attack comes?

	A full analysis, if possible at all, would involve
considerations of national and University politics as well
as purely individual circumstances.  However, an important
cause seems to me to be that
a majority of
the American people have elected an Administration whose views
are different from those supported by a majority of the academic
community.  The latter majority should relax.  Sooner or later, the
Democrats will win the Presidency again, and Hoover people will be
out in the cold, and the jobs and consultancies will go again
to people from the Brookings Institution and the Kennedy School
of Government at Harvard.

	In any administrative situation there are anomalies,
and intellectual gerrymandering can always find ways in which
the Hoover relation to Stanford is anomalous, while that between
the Kennedy School and Harvard University is normal.

	The Rebholz argument includes a citation of the books
and reports they don't like.  There is an amusing parallel to
a group of parents objecting to books in the school library.


WHAT NOW?

	Today (May 18) the %2Stanford Daily%1 headline is %2"Kennedy on Hoover:
issue is governance, not politics"%1.  The Daily reports that Kennedy's
statement was applauded both by Professors John Manley and Ronald Rebholz
(the faculty initiators of the protest) and also by Professor Alphonse Juilland,
(the initiator of a statement defending the Hoover).  Apparently
Manley and Rebholz are retreating from their original demand that the
political bias of Hoover scholars be investigated and hope that
their goals (which I think are political) can be achieved by
a study that is ostensibly about governance.  I fear they may succeed.

	They can hope that Kennedy's
background as a high official of a Democratic Aministration and the
general liberal tendencies of the Stanford faculty will serve their
purpose.  There are always anomalies in any institutional arrangement
that is a product of history.  A suitable blue ribbon committee may
be appointed that might propose institutional and personnel changes
that would achieve the attackers' goals.  Will certain Hoover officials
be found "controversial" and dropped or supplemented by suitable
people?  The press will keep score, and the committee will be aware
that there will be charges of "whitewash" unless extensive changes
are proposed.

	The attackers unfortunately may
 have achieved part of their objective even if no
administrative changes are made.  Hoover scholars can be expected to
"moderate" their speech and writing for the good of the Institution, and
the Hoover director and the editors may well imagine the Stanford faculty
censoriously
looking over their shoulder as they decide whom to appoint or what books
to publish.

	To use civil rights jargon, a chilling effect was intended,
and a chilling effect may have been achieved.

	The most just and reasonable course for the University is
to regard the whole issue as hopelessly contaminated by its
obvious political motivation and drop it forthwith.

	If this cannot be done, then the following should be required.

	1. If any accusations of political bias are discussed at
all by any committee, they must be in writing.

	2. If Hoover's possible biases are discussed, the discussion
must be extended to those of any other Stanford department and to
student activities supported by the University, e.g. SWOPSI.

	3. Criteria for evaluating charges of bias must be explicit
and applied uniformly.

	4. Everyone interested should be invited to play the game
including the alumni involved in the newsletter %2Stanford's Direction%1.

	5. The University should undertake a legal commitment to be
fair in a form such that the results can be challenged in court.

	You see it really would be better to drop the whole thing.
Otherwise, since English departments tend to be more liberal than
those of aeronautical engineering, we may end up having to bus
professors between the two in order to achieve balance.  
Would you want to fly in an airplane designed by Ronald Rebholz?

.begin verbatim

John McCarthy
Computer Science Department
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