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| Academic freedom is an extension
of the concept of free speech; it is the idea that there should
be no unreasonable limits on the search for knowledge. |
by Harry Miller
Harry Miller is Senior Reference Archivist at the Wisconsin
Historical Society.
It is called the University of Wisconsin’s Magna Carta and symbolizes
"one of the defining events" of the University’s history. This is high
praise for the message on a plaque affixed to Bascom Hall on the University
of Wisconsin-Madison campus:
Whatever may be the limitations which trammel inquiry elsewhere,
we believe that the great state University of Wisconsin should ever
encourage that continual and fearless sifting and winnowing by which
alone the truth can be found.
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| Richard T. Ely, 1910. Wisconsin Historical Society,
Whi (X3) 17722. |
The statement is a ringing endorsement of academic freedom, one of
the foundations of higher education in this country. Academic freedom
is an extension of the concept of free speech; it is the idea that there
should be no unreasonable limits on the search for knowledge. It asserts
that teachers and students should be free to pursue the advancement
of knowledge without fear of reprisal if others disagree with their
approach or their findings. It is a timeless issue that, can take many
forms, from moral conflicts over teaching evolution to current controversies
over cloning and stem cell research.
The "sifting and winnowing" statement, as it is generally called, is
part of a Board of Regents report that concluded one of the nation’s
most celebrated academic freedom cases: the "trial" of Richard T. Ely.
In 1894 Ely was Director of the University’s School of Economics, Politics
and History. He was at the head of his profession, a leader whose expertise
was recognized both in academic circles and by the social and governmental
leaders of the day. He was not, however, without controversy. Ely’s
main research interest was the labor movement and the economic and social
problems that lead to violent labor unrest. Using reasoning that would
become the core of Wisconsin’s progressive tradition, he believed that
through studying and understanding both sides in these labor-management
conflicts, economic peace that would benefit both labor and industry
could be achieved.
From today’s perspective this seems like a logical and laudable goal
for a social scientist, but it was not necessarily the case in the early
1890s. The country was in the throes of a serious depression, and strikes
and incidents of labor-management violence seemed alarmingly frequent.
The late 1880s and early 1890s saw numerous such cases: the famous "Haymarket
Massacre," where a bomb thrown by alleged anarchists claimed the lives
of seven Chicago police officers; the "Homestead Massacre," a gun battle
between Pinkerton detectives and strikers at a Carnegie steel plant
that also took seven lives; and the violent Pullman railroad strike,
which was put down by federal troops. These events helped create a climate
of fear in significant segments of the population.
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| The Ely trial was dramatized on "Profiles
in Courage," the 1960s television series based on the book
by John F. Kennedy. Here, as captioned by NBC, "Dan O'Herlihy
as Prof. Richard T. Ely and Marsha Hunt as his wife, await the decision
of a committee that will affect his future career." Playing
Oliver E. Wells in the episode was Edward Asner, later television's
"Lou Grant." Leonard Nimoy of "Star Trek" fame
was also in the cast. |
In this climate Oliver E. Wells, Wisconsin’s State Superintendent of
Public Instruction and a member of the Board of Regents, charged that
Ely’s teaching and writings provided moral justification for attacks
on life and property. Wells chose a national forum to make his charges.
In a letter to the editor of The Nation magazine, titled "The College
Anarchist," Wells charged that the professor believed in strikes and
boycotts. He claimed Ely had advised an outside strike organizer during
a Madison printers’ strike, and had demanded the unionization of the
shop where he did business. "In conversation … he [Ely] asserted that
where a skilled workman was needed, a dirty, dissipated, unmarried,
unreliable, and unskilled tramp, if a union man, should be employed
in preference to an industrious, skillful, trustworthy non-union man
who is the head of a family." Moreover, Wells alleged that Ely’s writings
and teaching contained "utopian, impractical, or pernicious doctrines"
that promoted radical social unrest.
Two days later the letter was reprinted in the New York Evening
Post, and the next issue of The Nation
followed up with an anti-Ely editorial speculating that he would soon
be forced to resign. Newspapers around the country picked up the story,
making it both a national and a local issue.
In Madison Ely felt under attack. In his autobiography he wrote, "my
only feeling was one of intense indignation at the injustice which had
been done me. I felt that my career … was being threatened. I realized
that all my hopes and ambitions to play a significant role in the educational
history of the country were in danger. . ." He considered ignoring the
attack in hopes that the furor would dissipate on its own, or suing
Wells for libel. The matter, however, was taken out of his hands when
the Board of Regents decided to form an investigating committee and
hold hearings on Wells’s charges.
The period between the July 12 publication of Wells’s letter and the convening
of the hearings on Aug. 20 was filled with charges, counter charges, and
behind- the- scenes wrangling. Ely wrote Wisconsin
State Journal editor Amos P. Wilder, "Mr. Wells’ letter contains
nothing but lies." Wilder responded that while he personally sympathized
with Ely, he could not do so editorially due to the views of the newspaper’s
owner. Former Ely student and future University of Illinois president
David Kinley coordinated Ely’s defense. In mid-August he wrote Ely, "we
have Mr. Wells in a nice little hole of his own digging. It remains for
you [Ely] to bury him — and you can."
The hearings, held in the Law School auditorium from, Aug. 20-23, had
all the elements of a courtroom drama. The Regents’ committee "sat at
the judge’s rostrum, with Ely and his attorney on one side and Wells
and his lawyer on the other." The first session on Aug. 20 was closed
to the public. For the hearings’ second day "the law auditorium was
packed with over 200 people, including professors and prominent townspeople."
On the third and final day. influential witnesses, including University
of Wisconsin President Charles Kendall Adams, U.S. Commissioner of Labor
Statistics Carroll D. Wright, Brown University President E. Benjamin
Andrews, and the eminent historian Frederick Jackson Turner, testified
in defense of Ely’s character, writing, and teaching.
By the hearings’ conclusion it was clear that Ely would be exonerated
and Wells discredited. There the incident would have ended, significant
but not precedent setting, but for the vision of John M. Olin. Ironically,
Ely had not used academic freedom in his defense, going so far as to
say that if the charges were true he should be fired. However, Olin
saw the trial as an opportunity for the Regents’ committee "to do the
University a great service." That great service was to insist on the
expansion of the report to include the "sifting and winnowing" statement
and make it an inspirational affirmation of the University of Wisconsin's
commitment to academic freedom.
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| A plaque at Bascom Hill at the University
of Wisconsin honors the decision of UW President Charles Adams to
preserve academic freedom. |
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