A Message on the Proposed Solution
to the Free Speech Controversy
| from: |
Faculty Members of the University
of California at Berkeley |
| to: |
Colleagues and Friends in the
State-wide University |
|
Members of Other Colleges and
Universities |
|
Fellow Citizens |
On December 8, 1964, the
Academic Senate (Berkeley Division) of the University of California proposed a solution to
the current free speech controversy. By a vote of 824 to 115, the Senate, which is
composed of faculty, deans, and directors, endorsed five propositions presented by its
Committee on Academic Freedom.
The propositions are as follows:
In order to end the present crisis, to establish
the confidence and trust essential to the restoration of normal University life, and to
create a campus environment that encourages students to exercise free and responsible
citizenship in the University and in the community at large, the Committee on Academic
Freedom of the Berkeley Division of the Academic Senate moves the following propositions:
1. That there
shall be no University disciplinary measures against members or organizations of the
University community for activities prior to December 8 connected with the current
controversy over political speech and activity.
2. That the time,
place, and manner of conducting political activity on the campus shall be subject to
reasonable regulation to prevent interference with the normal functions of the University;
that the regulations now in effect for this purpose shall remain in effect provisionally
pending a future report of the Committee on Academic Freedom concerning the minimal
regulations necessary.
3. That the
content of speech or advocacy sbould not be restricted by the University. Off-campus
student political activities shall not he subject to University regulation. On-campus
advocacy or organization of such activities shall be subject only to such Iimitations as
may be imposed under section 2.
4. That future
disciplinary measures in tbe area of political activity shall be determined by a committee
appointed by and responsible to the Berkeley Division of the Academic Senate.
5. That the
Division urge the adoption of the foregoing policies and call on all members of the
University community to join with the faculty in its efforts to restore the University to
its normal functions.
What Do the Academic Senate's
Propositions Involve?
The solution
requires very little change in the Regents' rules presently governing political activity
in the University community. It is meant to apply only to the Berkeley campus. In line
with the desire of the whole campus community to restore immediately the atmosphere of
confidence and trust essential to our primary educational functions, the faculty has
suggested one small but important procedural change -- that disciplinary jurisdiction over
breaches of regulations concerning the time, place, and manner of student political
activity be transferred to a committee of the Academic Senate. This change would restore a
function which the Senate performed until 1938.
There is much
misunderstanding about existing University regulations on political speech, the
desirability of modifications, and the present need for a just and responsible solution to
the practical problems which beset the Berkeley campus. For this reason it is important
that colleagues, friends, and the citizens of the state and nation understand what is at
stake.
Nine Distinguished Members of the
Faculty State Their Views
Philip Selznik
, Chairman,
Department of Sociology, and Chairman, Center for the Study of Law and Society
The action of the
Berkeley Division of the Academic Senate upholds the highest ideals of university
education and political life. It is a policy that is both right in principle and workable
in practice. The Senate is not against rules and will not shrink from enforcing them. But
these rules, and the policies that lie behind them, must fully reflect our commitment to a
free society. This is the basis of the Senate's resolution, and that is why I support it.
Carl E. Schorske, Professor
of History
The primary task
of the University of California has always been and must always be teaching, learning, and
research -- not political activity. Our students, however, are citizens, and should enjoy
the right to political expression and activity on the campus. That is all that the faculty
resolution wishes to establish. Such is the proper division of authority for a university
in a democratic society, whose youth are both students and citizens. The University must
regulate the time, place, and manner of this exercise so that it does not interfere with
the main functions of the academic community, but it cannot regulate content. Illegal acts
or expression should be punished by the law; offenses against the University community
should be punished by the University.
Joseph Tussman, Chairman,
Department of Philosophy
The crisis through
which we are passing involves at least three sets of problems. First, there are problems
resulting from recent attempts to resolve what is essentially a moral and spiritual crisis
by the use of radically inappropriate means -- the attempt to deal coercively and
punitively with the problems of mind and spirit. In this field we may hope, I believe,
that the spirit of amnesty will now prevail.
Second, there are
problems arising out of the quality and scope of University regulations governing speech,
assembly, and political or social action by members of the academic community.
Third, there are
problems arising from fundamental defects in the living constitution of the University, in
the relations between students, faculty, and administrators, and in the general structure
of authority.
Permanent peace
and health will not be easily attained. But the propositions before us are a good
beginning. I think they are all necessary.
I will comment
only upon point 3, which provides "That the content of speech or advocacy should not
be restricted by the University. Off-campus student political activities shall not be
subject to University regulation. On-campus advocacy or organization of such activities
shall be subject only to such limitations as may be imposed under Section 2."
This rule will
obviate most of the difficulties in this sensitive area. It is a sensible rule. But I
think we should regard it as more than just a "sensible rule," as more than a
way of avoiding tough administrative problems, and even as more than a rule which protects
important "rights." We should regard it, and support it, as symbolizing the
fundamental commitment of the University to its own essential nature. For it expresses the
conviction that ours is an institution whose proper mode of dealing with the mind
is educational, not coercive. We are not the secular arm. If we have forgotten this
we should be grateful to those who are now reminding us.
Josephine Miles, Professor
of English
The motto of the
University of California is Let There Be Light. The greatness of the University
depends upon the help of the people of California in keeping this light shining full and
free. When it is obscured by competing restrictions, we get the darkness and confusion of
the present situation.
Parents are to be
honored for having sent us in recent years students who are profoundly concerned with the
freedom of knowledge and opinion. They realize that freedom and stability are
complementary, not contradictory, and fear that both have been recently
impaired.Misunderstandings have been created partly by the intensity of the students, and
partly by the slowness of some of their elders to respond to their needs with full
comprehension.
The faculty has
necessarily taken up the task of interpreting students to the community and clarifying its
own principles: The principles are three:
Advocacy:
every citizen's constitutional right to express his beliefs; his right to speak and be
heard without the limitations set upon action.
Academic
responsibility: the Academic Senate's establishing of a committee on conduct.
Amnesty:
the recognition of misjudgments on all sides, and of the serious moral purpose of the
students' crusade, in which a majority of the students, and many of the best, are
participating.
Faculty members
favor reading lists; mine is as follows: John Milton's Areopagitica, Ralph Waldo
Emerson's Self Reliance, and the Constitution of thc United States of
America.
George J. Maslach, Dean,
College of Engineering, and S. A. Schaaf, Chairman, D˘partment of
Mechanical Engineering
Along with most of
the rest of the Berkeley Engineering Faculty, we voted for the five-point report of the
Academic Freedom Committee on Tuesday, December 8. This report recommends a long needed
and basic clarification of policy on student discipline in the area of freedom of speech
and political activity. In essence it will lead to new regulations under which legal
restraints on speech will be dealt with in the civil courts rather than by means of
extra-legal University disciplinary procedures.
The Berkeley
Senate's policy recommendation is the direct follow-up of the substance of the interim
administrative agreement made between all Berkeley Department Chairmen and President Kerr,
which was announced to the entire Berkeley campus community at the Greek Theatre meeting
on Monday.
Owen Chamberlain, Professor
of Physics and Nobel Laureate
Before the
disorder of recent days can be overcome, it would seem that the Administration and the
Faculty must indicate that they have heard what the students have been talking about.
The students are
not well impressed by the world as they see it. They see much that is wrong, as I am sure
most of us do. They feel it their privilege -- indeed, their responsibility -- to take
steps to make changes in an undesirable pattern. They feel that many of society's ills are
urgent matters whose cure should not be postponed. They feel their position as citizens
and feel the necessity of taking certain social action now -- not next year.
The students --
particularly those most active politically -- feel the necessity of having their views
heard, yet feel that within the spectrum of methods their elders would recommend to them
there is little that would allow them the effectiveness that they feel their conviction
warrants.
While it is the
claim of this University that it exists for the purpose of helping young people to become
skilled and responsible citizens, the Administrationand Faculty have very often taken a
rather paternalistic attitude toward the students. The students may rightly say that there
can be no sudden transition, the day they receive their last academic degree, from
dependent child to independent adult. They are insisting that they are young adults. They
are insisting that they do carry responsibility. They are showing us that even such a
simple matter as law and order on our campus depends upon them. They are asking that we
recognize their views not just as the views of youth, but also the views of adulthood.
They are saying
that they are each responsible adults, taking full responsibility for their actions. They
are saying they were not led blindly into political action. They are saying it is improper
-- in their view immoral -- to separate out for punishment only the leaders.
Here I come to
what I think is the crux of the the view I am trying to express. In their code of morality
they will not allow us the easy way out of punishing just the few who did the talking at a
rally on campus. They insist that they are all responsible for whatever happened as a
result of their united activity. They are saying that to punish only their leaders would
be, in their view, immoral.
I make no pretense
of speaking for the students. I have spoken to very few of them. I have spoken to just
enough of them to realize that some of our best students are supporters -- ardent ones --
of the FSM. I am trying to listen, and I ask you to listen. See if they are not saying:
Respect our civil disobedience -- it is sometimes better than foregoing the rights you
believe to be yours. Show us that we have the full rights of all citizens, whether we are
this year on the learning end or the teaching end of the University. Show us that we are
heard, when we act like adults, not always only lectured to. Show us you do not have to
treat US always as children, but more as adults when we achieve adult skills and facility.
Set for us an example of real intellectual integrity, the kind a university should be
proud of. Show us that you can, if we insist, treat us like men and women, each
responsible for his actions. Show us we do not have to be treated as children who now and
then follow some "insidious" leader. Show us, please, that whether or not you
approve of our form of morality, at least you have heard it.
Henry Nash Smith, Professor
of English, and former Chairman of the Academic Freedom Committee of the Academic Senate
(Berkeley Division and Statewide)
I voted for the
propositions for three principal reasons:
1. The
propositions are in conformity with the Constitution of the United States. As a layman
I am guided by the opinions of colleagues who are experts in the field of law. All the
legal scholars with whom I have discussed the matter have told me that the University has
no constitutional (and therefore no legal) right to limit students' freedom of speech or
political activity except in the manner indicated in.the second of the propositions -- by
regulating "the time, place, and manner" of political speech ancd activity to
the extent that may be necessary in order to "prevent interference with the normal
functions of the University." The Council of the American Association of University
Professors asked a committee to draft a statement concerning the academic freedom of
students for consideration by the Council. This report -- published in the current (Autumn
1964) issue of the AAUP Bulletin -- asserts, "Students should enjoy the same
freedom of religion, speech, press and assembly, and the right to petition the
authorities, that citizens generally possess. Exercise of these rights on or off the
campus should not subject them to institutional penalties.... When students run into
police difficulties offthe campus in connection with what they regard as their political
rights -- as for example, taking part in sit-ins, picket lines, demonstrations, riding on
freedom buses -- the college authorities should take every practical step to assure
themselves that such students are protected in their full legal rights and against
abuse."
2. Alternative
policies are unworkable. A long series of efforts by the Administration of the
University of California to devise University regulations preschibing the permissible
content of student political speech and activity has convinced me thaht such efforts lead
only to controversy and disturbance. The University is not equipped to draw up or to
enforce criminal laws. Even if such an undertaking were warranted in principle, it would
require the creation of an elaborate system of police and courts quite out of keeping with
the functions of the University as an institution of teaching and research. Criminal
prosecutions shouldbe left to the civil authorities. The students I have talked with
understand fully that if they break the laws they must expect to be punished by the
courts.
3. The civil
rights movement expresses the moral idealism of a whole generation of young Americans.
Most of the students involved in the recent demonstrations believe they are working in
behalf of a nationwide crusade for social justice, primarily in the area of rights for
Negroes. I believe the University should be very slow to align itself against a movement
enlisting the loyalties of so many young men and women in all parts of the country.
Thomas Parkinson, Professor
of English
There are two main
issues in the proposals of the Berkeley Division of the Academic Senate. First, should
advocacy of political action be restricted on the campus of a university? The Senate says
in effect that if "Congress shall make no law . . . abridging the freedom of
speech," then a university should make no law abridging the freedom of speech. The
content of speech should not be limited and its form should be regulated only insofar as
necessary in order to allow the University to carry out its main functions. On this main
point there seems to me little room for argument. There is no such thing as more or less
freedom; men either have freedom or they do not, and limitation of the content of speech
destroys freedom. What limitations there are on the content of speech are matters to be
determined by the courts.
Second, there is
the question of whether or not there should be an amnesty for past student activity in
discord with university regulations. On this last point it is my conviction that there
should be a universal amnesty on the Berkeley campus, for students, faculty, and
administration. Generosity of spirit is required from all members of the community, and
the members of the community who have the greatest power, and therefore the greatest
opportunity to make a large act of charity, are the members of the Board of Regents. Once
that act is made, the campus can then continue its development with faith in its
memberships' hope for a more glorious future, and charity for all: remembering from this
point on that the greatest of these is charity.
Sponsored by Professors Henry Nash
Smith, William Kornhauser, Sheldon Wolin, Charles Muscatine, Charles Sellers, and David
Freedman, and prepared by a volunteer committee of University professional staff.