What's New at Washington University

Jonathan I. Katz, Professor of Physics, Washington University

The Washington University administration maintains a tight control over campus life in ways unheard of at reputable universities. A department chairman with decades of experience at WU and several other institutions describes our adminstrators as ``control freaks'' and says that he has never seen anything like this elsewhere. This web page contains several illustrations. They are all true, and all took place in the last several years. Some are most relevant to students, others to faculty, but all should be of concern to anyone who values a university as a place of free inquiry.

Faculty autonomy is one of the most prized principles of university governance. It means that teaching and research are under the control of the faculty, as individuals and (in some cases) as a collective body, but not of the administration. It recognizes that, intellectually, a university consists of its faculty. In this respect a university differs from any other kind of organization. The efforts of its faculty (teaching and research) are self-directed. This is essential to academic freedom, the right to choose the subjects, and form the conclusions, of research and teaching without outside interference. The administration's function is to support these efforts, but not to participate in, control or direct them (that is why the leaders of a university are called administrators, not managers). No one worth having will come to an institution where he will not have this independence.

This may be unfamiliar to those used to corporations, in which the entire hierarchy is involved in designing, producing and marketing products or services, and in which senior management directs the activities of subordinates, down to the factory floor. A university is more like a hospital, in which medical care is provided by doctors and nurses, not by administrators who may not have medical qualifications. A hospital administrator without an M.D., no matter how high ranking, does not (and is forbidden by law to) tell a physician how to practice medicine.

The conduct of examinations is part of the faculty's teaching responsibility. This includes dealing with students' requests for special consideration, such as deferrals or modifications of examinations because of illness, scheduling conflicts, or other individual problems. This worked well for many decades. Unfortunately, in the late 1990's the Washington University administration began to issue orders to its faculty to give some students preferential treatment on examinations. This violates basic principles of equal treatment of all students and of academic integrity as well as of faculty autonomy. Any attempt to question these orders (administrations at reputable universities do not issue orders to their faculty) was met be a refusal to justify them, and any objections were met by threats to remove a faculty member's tenure on spurious charges of ``discrimination'' (at universities accusations of ``discrimination'' are an all-purpose weapon against which there is almost no defense, like ``disloyalty'' in the McCarthy era, and non-discrimination is construed as evidence of discrimination). For details click here. At other institutions the administration understands that these decisions are properly in the hands of the responsible faculty members, and does not attempt to interfere.

When guest speakers visit campus there is generally time for questions. At certain Washington University events (for example, a speech by Robert Dole; see Student Life September 19, 2003) only ``prescreened questions'' from ``selected student leaders'' are permitted. Who is afraid of an unscreened question from an unselected student, and why? I'm sure it isn't Bob Dole. The same thing happened to Rudy Guiliani on Nov. 5, 2005 (Student Life November 7, 2005), who wanted to take un-pre-selected questions, but wasn't permitted to.

I was surprised to learn that at a certain very prestigious Eastern university the faculty voted on a change in the sexual harassment policy. The faculty decides? That would never happen here. In my 22 years as a tenured faculty member at Washington University I don't recall ever having had the opportunity to vote on any university policy. This tells something about differences in university governance. It may be part of the reason that Eastern university remains so prestigious, while Washington University remains the destination of those who cannot get admitted to, or hired by, prestigious Eastern universities. Faculty members are paid, in part, in respect and prestige. That doesn't mean groveling students (which we don't want); it means an administration which defers to the faculty on matters which are properly the faculty's responsibility.

Even at lower prestige universities the faculty plays an essential role in university governance. For example, until recently (the change has been a matter of controversy; see The Chronicle of Higher Education October 10, 2003) at the University of Akron the faculty elected representatives to the search committees for deans, a recommendation of two thirds of the faculty of a department was required to appoint a chairman, and faculty participation was part of the processes by which a president was chosen and by which rules, regulations and procedures were established. At Washington University the faculty is excluded from all these functions.

When I raise some of the foregoing questions with colleagues, many of them agree with me, but insist that I not use their names. Something is very wrong when people are afraid to make their opinions known. In my experience, staff (who don't have tenure) at national laboratories doing classified research feel freer to criticize the government than tenured Washington University faculty members feel to criticize their administration.

Most universities publish alumni magazines. The University of Pennsylvania's contains good journalism and interesting articles (for example, recently about an evangelist who evangelizes on campus). The Washington University alumni magazine consists of puff pieces from public relations. Both magazines boast of campus accomplishments, but the tone is very different. The Penn magazine publishes letters from alumni (and others), often lively and contentious. The Washington U. magazine publishes no letters at all! What are they afraid of?

In October 2001 the Washington University campus police expelled from campus reporters covering a student demonstration. Soon after, ``Guidelines for Media'' were issued demanding that reporters get advance permission to enter campus, and stating that no student or faculty member could talk to a reporter without an official minder from Public Affairs present. See Washington University Press Policy for details. (Nearly a year later, following pressure from the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, this Soviet-style policy was modified, but remains offensive to freedom of the press.) What was the justification for the ``Guidelines for Media''? We were told criminals might enter the campus by pretending to be reporters, and that the policy was necessary to protect the privacy of medical records (do they leave them in unlocked filing cabinets on the quad?). This is delusional. Reputable universities (even our lower-prestige neighbors, St. Louis University and the University of Missouri at St. Louis) do not have ``Guidelines for Media''.

I attempted to introduce into appropriate faculty bodies a resolution petitioning the trustees to overrule the ``Guidelines for Media''. After nearly two years, it is still unclear whether it will ever appear on an agenda. The faculty have not been permitted to express a collective opinion, or even to engage in formal public discussion, on this issue which is central to civil liberties and freedom of thought. What is the administration afraid of? Is there something very bad they are trying to hide (worse than the ``Guidelines for Media'' themselves?)?

November 5, 2003 Student Life (the student newspaper) reported that 36 Nicaraguan contract workers on campus had their contract abruptly terminated. This invalidated their visas, so they had to return home, suffering substantial financial loss, both from loss of their jobs and from the need to change their airline tickets on short notice. Some were forced to abandon possessions. Remarkably, the university never offered any explanation and refused to discuss the issue and its callous behavior. This from administrators who never cease to trumpet their concern for the less fortunate (at least, for their favorite less fortunates).

Two years later, no facts have yet emerged, and no one in the administration will discuss the issue. These guys are more secretive than the CIA. Rumors include: 1. A high-ranking administrator just doesn't like Latinos; 2. Another high-ranking administrator wanted to steer the contract to one of his friends. One rumor (reported in Student Life) that proved to be untrue was that the workers would be rehired under a different contractor.

A major fund-raising drive resulted in the creation of dozens of new endowed faculty chairs. This was a unique opportunity to recruit leading scholars from other institutions (that's how first-rate institutions become, and remain, first-rate). In almost every case these new chairs were given to people who are already here, wasting this once-in-a-generation opportunity (but permitting the administration to transfer the occupants' previous salaries to its piggy-bank). According to campus gossip (I don't know enough about the individuals involved to have an independent opinion) many of the recipients were undistinguished, rewarded for political reasons.

A retired member of my department left it, in his will, a substantial sum to be used to bring visiting scholars. We cannot use that money because we have been told that if we do so our support from the administration will be reduced by the same amount. An anonymous donor endowed a chair, on the condition that it be in addition to the professorships supported by the regular budget; we were told that if we filled it a regular (administration-supported) position would be taken away from us, and this is what happened. Gifts and bequests meant to strengthen a department are misappropriated by the central administration.

None of these things would happen at a reputable university. If Washington University expects to compete with the prestigious research universities for students and faculty, it must emulate them, as it did in the past. If it continues these trends it will be classed with certain institutions that call themselves universities, but that are not taken seriously. We used to call ourselves the Harvard of the Midwest. Is it our future to be known as the Bob Jones of the Midwest?

If the foregoing were reported in the New York Times, how would it look? How would it affect faculty and student recruitment?

And, finally, silliness. I recently noticed a handsome new bronze plaque above a wheelchair ramp: ``In memory of...the first student in a wheelchair to use this ramp.'' Around here, that is a great distinction, perhaps because we have so few genuine distinctions to boast of. Do we have a memorial to the first student to eat in the cafeteria?

Then I asked myself, where is the memorial to students and graduates who died defending America and freedom in our wars? There is a memorial to those who died in the First World War, but I have never found a memorial to those who died in the Second World War, or any other American war. And that is not just silly. It is wrong to forget the noble dead. But at Washington University they are not considered worth a minute's thought.

April 1, 2004: Washington University has hauled down the Jolly Roger. The Ervin Scholarships (named for an obscure local administrator) are now open to all applicants. Formerly, they were restricted to members of a certain race. Didn't Congress pass, and the President sign, a Civil Rights Act in 1964 which forbade racial discrimination by any organization doing business with the government? Yes, but the Washington University administration considered itself above mere laws of the United States, and the resources of the university to be its private piggy bank, available for dispensing to its favorites. The real test is whether this scholarship program will now be administered in a non-discriminatory manner. The only way to tell is by the method used to test fair housing laws---send applicants with identical records but of different races and see if they are treated the same. The administration has made it clear that it intends to continue racial discrimination, but it will be thinly veiled by the removal of the explicit racial test. Very likely, a few members of the wrong races will be awarded Ervin scholarships, and a few more members of the right race will be awarded scholarships from another program, even if their qualifications are below those of other applicants. This is George Wallace's policy of ``massive resistance'' to perpetuate racism.

May 7, 2004: Washington University rejoins the United States. A statue of George Washington has been erected and dedicated, appropriately for an institution named for him. It actually looks like him, unlike the nearby rabbit statue, which resembles an emaciated jackass. We have come a long way since Fall 2001, when the administration eagerly expressed its sympathy for any Arab who might be inconvenienced by post-September 11 security, but seemed uninterested in students who lost friends and family or in America under attack. Or, perhaps we haven't---perhaps the statue is there only because a donor insisted. And one wonders why Washington is depicted standing by fasces (a bundle of rods tied around an axe, the Roman symbol of authority). Although the fasces were once innocent iconography representing the laws of Rome (for example, on ``Mercury'' dimes from 1916 until 1945, and in paintings such as ``Washington Giving the Laws to America''), Rome, Republican or Imperial, was no democracy, and they were adoped by Mussolini as the symbol of Fascism. However that may be, read Washington's words of wisdom inscribed on the base.

It turns out that the statue is a cast of a 1785 original by Jean-Antoine Houdon in the Virginia State Capitol. However innocent the fasces might have been in 1785 (even then, a liberty cap would have been more appropriate, for Washington was not an author of any of our major legal documents), they are certainly inappropriate today. Is someone endorsing fascism, or accusing America and Washington of it? As part of a library renovation costing nearly $40,000,000, couldn't a new statue have been commissioned? And, why was so much spent on a building (see the architectural criticism in the May 16, 2004 Post-Dispatch), when nothing has been done to improve the weak collections housed within? Is it because administrators manage major building projects, while decisions about book acquisitions devolve to librarians?

October 19, 2004: The administration has been kind enough to send out an email listing all the new faculty hires in Arts & Sciences in 2004--05, along with a few facts about their careers and professional interests. Of most interest is the list of institutions we have ``raided''---the previous affiliations of new faculty who came from tenure or tenure-track jobs elsewhere. Here is the list (excluding one Mexican institution likely to be unfamiliar to Americans and cases in which this information was not given): Santa Clara University, Sweet Briar College, New Mexico State, Davidson College, Georgia State, and the University of New Mexico.

First rank institutions stay that way by raiding other first rank institutions, and weaker institutions trying to better themselves do so by raiding first rank institutions. A second rank institution like Washington University is not going to improve by raiding those of the third rank. Resources aren't the problem: WU just completed a very successful fund raising drive, and even previously had the tenth-largest endowment in the country. This is a failure of leadership: the administration either has no interest in improving the institution, or has no inkling of how to go about it.

``Hurricane transfers pay WU tuition'' (headline Student Life September 26, 2005). Students transferring to Washington University because their schools in New Orleans were closed by Hurricane Katrina are being required to pay full tuition. This is in addition to what they have paid their original institutions, although at least one such school (Tulane) has promised reimbursement. Many other schools are offering free tuition to Katrina refugees. WU's policy isn't unethical or dishonest. It's just ungenerous. It's typical of the narrow and short-sighted attitude of the WU administration. For example, students studying abroad are required to pay full WU tuition, even though their foreign institutions charge much less. WU pockets the difference. And students' email accounts disappear after they graduate, even though the cost of maintaining them is insignificant. Doesn't anyone here think loyalty is worth something?

A few years ago I posted a web page In Defense of Homophobia. The title was deliberately provocative; the content was a temperate and reasoned discussion of how homosexual promiscuity had caused, and is morally culpable for, the AIDS epidemic in America. I fear homosexuality because it has created a deadly epidemic. For some years no one seemed to notice. Then one of my students did, and published an opinion column in Student Life calling for its censorship. (To my surprise, the administration has not attempted to do so.) This was followed by a wave of similar calls, including an editorial. After this first wave, my critics, most of whom probably consider themselves liberals, seem to have realized that censorship is not a liberal position. The next wave consisted of a mixture of name-calling, irrelevancies (one girl wrote how much she loved her wonderful homosexual ``Uncle John'') and attacks on positions I did not take (for example, the erroneous idea that only homosexuals get AIDS). Most disturbing was the concern, voiced by several students, that disagreeing with a professor would bring reprisals. Apparently this abuse of professorial authority is so common that students expect it.

No one took issue with what I actually wrote; it was as if I had triggered a nervous reflex rather than thought. While the published comments were mostly negative, private emails have been running about 2:1 in agreement with me, suggesting censorship by social pressure of public comments. One favorable email follows:

[Identifying information removed from following message:]

Your personal web page tells it like it is.

I am a [institution deleted] faculty, not tenured, who finds your ability to frankly state the obvious refreshing. Unfortunately I do not feel the academic freedom within this system of higher learning to voice non polically correct sentiments.

For now I'll toe the line, make the papers, work for the rank and tenure to be free to once state my real beliefs without fear of repression, censure, or job loss from from the Right.

[End of anonymized message; presumably he means Left rather than Right]

On October 9, 2006 the Washington University Student Life reported a student's allegation that, more than two years before, a Washington University professor had attempted to rape her on an official university field trip. The University covered this up for two years, during which the alleged perpetrator is alleged to have continued to prey on students. Washington University certainly failed to protect its students. Members of the adminstration may also have been guilty of obstruction of justice and witness tampering (if they pressured the victim not to complain to proper legal authorities, which she apparently never did). I would not send my daughter to this institution.

In November, 2006 Washington University announced in an email to faculty the following policy on Administrative Suspension: ``There may be occasions where a person with administrative authority withing the University (e.g., a dean or department chair) deems it necessary or advisable to palce afaculty member on administrative suspension, in order to protect the University or members of the University community (e.g., students, faculty, staff, patients).'' There follow four more paragraphs of administrative details. But nowhere are the criteria or authority for this procedure stated (which, except in very limited circumstances, is in conflict with the Tenure Policy, a legally binding document). According to this statement, in which ``necessary to protect'' is not defined and could run the gamut from prevention of imminent violence to shielding from controversial ideas, a faculty member may be placed on administrative suspension for any reason (including political opinions or acts, religious belief, private life off-campus, prejudice on the part of the administrator, etc.) or for no reason at all. Nor is it stated whether a faculty member on administrative suspension continues to be paid (it is stated in a later paragraph that his teaching may be suspended, and failure to fulfill teaching responsibilities is grounds for termination under the Tenure Policy, without any exception for removal from teaching by administrative suspension, a procedure not contemplated in the Tenure Policy). This amounts to an assertion of the right to terminate a faculty member without cause, something unprecedented in American academia.

Who is responsible? For about a decade (during which all the events described here happened) the chancellor (highest administrator) of Washington University has been a man named Mark Wrighton (who is paid more than the president of Harvard---at WU, leadership includes a deep dip into the cookie jar). The No. 2 has been a man named Edward Macias. The faculty have been excluded, almost entirely, from university governance, and most are afraid to disagree publicly with the administration. Mr. Wrighton is supposed to be a good fund raiser, but when he was appointed the WU endowment was ranked No. 10 in the country. Now it is well down in the teens.

By the standards of workplace psychopathology, this is all rather mild. But universities differ from other institutions: a climate of free inquiry nd discussion is essential to a university (even more so to one that aspires to inclusion in a list of ``prestigious'' universities). A climate of bullying, intimidation and harassment makes any workplace a hostile environment. But a university in which these occur isn't worthy of the name.

Comments? Send them to [my last name]@wuphys.wustl.edu.