Repository: UIHistories Project: Board of Trustees Minutes - 1964 [PAGE 1178]

EXTRACTED TEXT FROM PAGE:

1964]

UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS

1133

In view of these considerations, therefore, our Committee advises you: 1. That it approves your statement to the Board of Trustees on February 19, 1964. 2. That action of any kind concerning these expressions or toward Professor Oliver because of them is not indicated.

BHUCE L. H I C K S ROBERT W . JOHANNSEN DRIVER B. LINDSAY CHARLES H . BOWMAN ELWOOD F . REBER HAROLD W. H A N N A H

E. B. M C N A T T ,

Chairman

Urbana-Champaign Senate on Academic Freedom and

Committee Tenure

It should be noted that my February 19, 1964, statement to the Board of Trustees, which the Committee has approved, contains the following paragraph: "That Mr. Oliver's views are not shared by this academic community is certain. I believe my colleagues agree, as I said earlier, that his unsupported accusations, and his unreasoned and vitriolic attack on the character and patriotism of President Kennedy are beyond the bounds of good taste in public comment and the normal proprieties of public debate." I concur in the advice of the Committee. 1 would add that I deplore the nature and manner of Mr. Oliver's comments which to so many appear to violate the canon that a faculty member in exercising his freedom of speech as a citizen should be mindful "that accuracy, forthrightness, and dignity befit his association with the University and his position as a man of learning." This appraisal is widely shared but I do not believe that it is adequate grounds for my filing disciplinary charges against Mr. Oliver.

DAVID D. HENRY

President

On motion of Mr. Johnston, the President's report was approved by the Board. Mr. Dilliard voted "No" and asked that the following explanation of his vote be included in the record:

March 18, 1964 MR. PRESIDENT : T h e Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois has before it at this time the most difficult, complex, distasteful, and embarrassing problem that has confronted the Board in the nearly four years since I was elected a Trustee. F r o m coast to coast the good name of the University of Illinois has been associated inevitably with an outrageous attack on the loyalty of an assassinated President who, as it happens, almost lost his life in the heroic service of our country in World W a r I I . After the first attack and since we took action concerning it at our February 19 meeting, the same member of the University's faculty has leveled a similar assault on the integrity of the Chief Justice of the United States. In each case the publication appeared in a magazine connected with the John Birch Society. As a citizen of Illinois, as well as a member of this Board, I support fully the fundamental principle of academic freedom, founded on the historic American guarantee of freedom of mind and speech, with the widest possible latitude for every University of Illinois scholar to inquire and expound, in the light of his intelligence and of his learning, and according to his conscience. I also recognize, and, in so far as it may be my official duty to do so, I encourage the separate role of the university scholar as a participating citizen in a society of many differing attitudes and opinions. At the same time, I regard the academic man's search for truth, with its scrupulous documentation of supporting evidence as the indispensable hallmark of accurate and trustworthy research by the university teacher and scholar. Freedom of inquiry is both cherished and right and unshirkable responsibility. Nowhere is this more true than on a university faculty dedicated to the education of citizens and the advancement of knowledge.