The University and Public Life

...But of course the "boob-tube" is misleading and the millennium is never instantly achieved...

...you may not carry a sword beneath a scholar's gown...

...or that some voices call for the politicization of universities...

...It might be otherwise if we were content with authority, uniformity and security of a sort for the conformist...

...And if we compare where men are with where they have been and where they must go, we may conclude that even if men cannot bring about the millennium, still they can help each other suffer a little less and learn to do a little better...

...Yet fact and reason have their day...

...The area of overlap has consequently widened enormously...

...Surely, there is also need for voices to stress the importance of constraints on the means we employ in pursuing even the worthiest ends...

...You either compromise or get out...

...Judicial rules about the weight to be given legislative history take on a different meaning after one has supplied a Senator with an explanation of a bill to be read to an empty chamber so that years later the statement can be cited to a court as proof of the intent of the entire Congress...

...But knowledgeability and sophistication are small returns for the classes untaught, the books unwritten and the individual students neglected...

...My point is that institutional considerations are important, and that if university men and women cannot present them with detachment, others will not...

...The spirit of learning is willing to reach conclusions and act upon them until a better hypothesis appears, yet it asserts no orthodoxy and is never too sure it is right...

...What can the scholar-teacher indeed all university men and women hope to bring to public affairs besides skill and knowledge...

...Nor is it just a matter of passion...

...So it must be with our common human adventure...

...It would be easy to answer that events have over-swept Judge Hand's opinion: that today's "knowledge-factory" or "multiversity" bears no resemblance to the Harvard he attended and the institutions of which he spoke...

...We can sharpen our awareness that the qualities Woodrow Wilson described as the spirit of learning are the prerequisites of free society...

...Brute power becomes the determinant of what is falsely labeled "justice...

...It is true that in the realm of policy one must often take half a loaf or even a quarter-loaf with a view to coming back for more...

...is as old as social union, and can never be entirely quieted...

...For those who take the long view of human experience will find that from time to time other societies have been no less honest and courageous than ours in facing all the ugliness, cruelty and indifference the mirror reveals, yet they continued to pursue a brighter, nobler vision of man's potential...

...As in the past, men go blundering along, inept, selfish, power-hungry, and filled with capacity for evil...

...But disappointment with the failure to achieve the millennium should not lead to obsession with whatever is bad-like the media's And so to cynicism and despair, or the search for escape in the perverse and abnormal...

...The norms we set now will influence the conduct of many officials in high places for years to come...

...But if men and women are of equal dignity and worth, if our goal is the freedom of each to choose the best he can discern, if we seek to do what we can to progress toward the realization of these beliefs, then authority will not suffice and some means must be found to mediate between the self-interested, passionate factions that demand all for themselves and the extinction of all opposition, and hence initially repel the very thought of mediation...

...and both the professors and their institutions value these opportunities...

...The current impeachment proceedings furnish an example...

...The physical scientist knows that to bow before the burning bush is no substitute for the patient exploration of observable data and the constant checking and rechecking of induced hypotheses...

...Government and those seeking to influence it have too much use for the scholar's skill and knowledge...

...Can the scholar carry anything useful from public life back to his teaching...

...But while the first proposition is beyond dispute, the second I reject without qualification...

...Thus the question is no longer whether the teacher-scholar will abjure all other roles, but what he will contribute to civic life besides his skill and knowledge...

...But this kind of accommodation in the interests of the whole social enterprise requires no surrender of moral limitations...

...I have heard it said that young people today have, in their discouragement, retreated from idealism and commitment...

...The role of the press, the problems of proper and improper political influence, the consequences of physical or emotional exhaustion are better learned from personal experience than from treatises...

...but he who will act with moderation, prefer fact to theory, and remember that everything in this world is relative and not absolute will see that the violence of the contest may be stilled...

...Teachers who have other allegiances, like those who rush into print upon every invitation, succumbing to the simplicitudes and exaggerations necessary to provide good copy, impair their own effectiveness when their views might count for more, and also the effectiveness of their colleagues...

...and that, in any case, his liberal, rationalist and essentially optimistic philosophy of the 18th and 19th centuries, although tinctured with skepticism, is now outmoded...

...If you go into it . . . you have to compromise...

...worldwide high rate of inflation if some brilliant young economist had devoted less time to political activity and more time to economic analysis...

...That was the only important thing the mission...

...Some years ago, while advising lawmakers about labor legislation at the behest of the then-Senator John F. Kennedy, I found myself wondering if the "expert" opinions I expressed were the same as those I would have given in the classroom or written in a law review when freed from the awareness that one answer might help and the other might hurt the Senator's cause in the political battle...

...The aspects of human activity deemed suitable for scholarly attention have expanded at almost the same rate as the functions of government...

...Nor do I suppose that such general issues will not be mixed with more passionate, selfish and immediate ingredients...

...The law professor who has drafted careful ambiguities to break a legislative impasse construes other statutes with better insight...

...For many there is the chance to vindicate the contempt they have always felt for Richard Nixon...

...In the heyday of Joseph McCarthy the intellectual world, including the press, was properly outspoken about the danger of ex parte accusation, the unfairness of planting charges in the press without adequate opportunity for denial, and the lack of true adversary proceedings...

...There is no place in the university for silencing heresy, as the executive board of the American Anthropological Association in effect attempted by voting to condemn the publication of the works of R. J. Herrnstein, William Shockley and Arthur Jensen as "racist, sexist, and anti-working-class...

...The argument grew so vehement that one editorial writer compared the hearings to a lawsuit over personal injuries...

...My questions may have no answer...

...More recently, I again found myself confronting the problem...

...This brings us back to the question of whether the scholar-teacher surrenders his unique qualities by entering government or can bring them to public life...

...One is a special concern for the institutions that shape human affairs, in contrast to devotion to individuals, groups or the outcome of particular events...

...This winter I filed a brief amicus curiae supporting the universities' discretion...

...Sloan's error was in not distinguishing political aims and opinions from ultimate values, from judgments of right and wrong, from the moral limitations whose observance is essential to the long-run legitimacy of political power...

...Where does this leave me as a scholar...

...Was Judge Hand correct...

...To ask it, moreover, is to look at the central function of the university and at what above all else the scholar-teacher might wish students to take away with them...

...How far, in the face of personal or political risks, does it extend...

...He pleaded that the scholar-teacher stand aside from public life: "If he is fit to serve in his calling at all, it is only because he has learned not to serve in any other...

...Certainly Judge Hand was right in saying, "You may take Martin Luther or Erasmus for your model, but you cannot play both roles at once...

...We might, for instance, now have the breakthrough needed to avoid or reduce the almostArchibald Cox, whose essay is adapted from a Phi Beta Kappa address, is Professor of Law at Harvard...

...He might also hope, as part of this, to be able to speak out of experience for the value of the long view...

...For if he brings only those qualities to the service of government, business, labor unions, "public interest" lobbies, or other civic organizations, he supplies and society acquires his competence Great as it may be At excessive cost...

...Of course, the members of this Administration were not the first so to justify physical aggression, lying and cheating, and violation of the rights of speech, privacy, dignity, and other fundamental liberties...

...It would be absurd to claim that these qualities always prevail, or to deny the weight of ambition, stupidity, occasional corruption, and worst of all indifference...

...At such trials two groups of professional medical witnesses engage in forensic competition: One set Always the same set favors the plaintiff...

...I am most concerned about the debased value of academic opinion...

...Not because knowledge is amoral and teachers should confine themselves to discoverable "objective" data, but because ethical values can be resolved out of conflicting social, intellectual and spiritual aspirations only by sustained rational endeavor...

...In this regard, how the proceedings are conducted????the role of reason, the degree of impartiality, the level of effort to achieve justice will count more than the vote...

...The spirit of learning is the way of freedom and reason, mutual trust, civility and respect for one another...

...In the end, then, the scholar-teacher justifies his ventures into public life by the hope that the experience will enable him to bear witness more convincingly before his students that for them to carry away as citizens "not so much learning itself as the spirit of learning" will contribute most to the common adventure of all mankind...

...I do not know which way these questions cut, save that the recognition of the House of Representatives' right to any evidence it deems relevant seems essential to the viability of impeachment as an institution...

...Surely neither one embraced the naive supposition that there is absolute truth...

...Should I speak with the detachment of a scholar, which might in some small degree undercut the views and interests of my client...

...It just, sooner or later, takes the edge off your values...

...Professor B is away testifying before a Congressional committee, and Professor C is attending a meeting of the Caucus of Concerned Conservationists...

...When does the duty, if any, arise...

...Each political party every major candidate has a reliable stable of professorial experts...

...The prime source of my misgivings about the teacher-scholar's ability to serve two masters was probably my sudden realization in an earlier period, when engaged in wage stabilization, that I was preaching internal union democracy to my Harvard classes and doing all I could in Washington to promote the strength of national union officials...

...Second, the teacher who has been in government may be able to testify more persuasively than others that the way of the scholar, the way of reason, the way of professionalism call it what you will is effective in ordering human affairs...

...It would be superfluous and even insulting to argue in these pages that we may never condone the politicization of scholarship or the suppression of opinion...

...Not because the university is value-free but because open-minded inquiry is the highest value...

...Quite the reverse: They held that only by free and open inquiry can men progress toward understanding...

...There are two much simpler but more important observations about public life that the scholar who ventures into government may bring back as a teacher...

...The students of recent years have been idealistic enough to see what can be, honest enough to face the gap between that and what is, and courageous enough to seek instant correction...

...Yet the only means consonant with freedom so far discovered is to impart to the State and its citizens some of the scholar's way, to apply to all our divisions what George Bancroft wrote of the conflict between employers and employes: "The feud between the capitalist and laborer...

...The forces and costs of unremitting divisiveness require no elaboration...

...If there is suspicion that wrongdoing occurred down the chain of command, does the man at the top have a duty to insure thorough investigation...

...It is good to see ourselves as we are, and I hope that youth will never become patient about the gap between what is and what ought to be...

...Second, implicitly if not explicitly we are formulating some minimum acceptable standards of official behavior...

...The question has long haunted me as one who has sat at his feet and yet has traveled often between Cambridge and Washington...

...Compromise is unavoidable if conflicting goals and rival interests of competing groups are to be melded into consensus...

...What I have to say in addressing it takes rather personal form, perhaps too personal...

...We do not live in a world of "either . . . or . . ." But I think we can decide between the scholar's way of reason, striving for truth with all possible detachment, and the zealot's path of total political loyalty, promoting fixed commitments...

...If I try the latter, how shall I or my audience measure my impartiality...

...The first is that Hugh Sloan of the Committee to Reelect the President was wrong when he said: "I learned one thing in politics...

...Similarly, when academic scientists, lawyers and economists pledge their loyalty and political commitment to special interests, we should hardly be surprised that belief in free inquiry and rational discourse diminishes...

...Again, the drama of Watergate supplies an illustration...

...By their conduct they have gained both respect and power, as Elliot Richardson and William Ruckles-haus demonstrated last October...

...Third, our confidence in our institutions, which means our self-confidence, hangs in the balance...

...The historian and humanist know that the record of human experience is replete with proof that some of the greatest wrongs have been committed, and many of the most civilizing and liberalizing ideas have been suppressed, in the names of Truth and Conscience...

...Do I continue to present the matter as an advocate, which would be to default on the representation that I am a scholar...

...Procedural fairness does not depend upon whose ox is being gored...

...Universities were remade by the scientific and technological explosion by society's voracious appetite for enormously complex bodies of knowledge and for young men and women trained to pursue professional, managerial and technocratic careers...

...First, as a nation we are shaping for future generations the instruments for dealing with wrong-doing by a President's close associates and the only instrument for dealing with a President alleged to be fundamentally unfaithful to his trust...

...The people in the White House," a former Nixon aide recalls, "believed they were entitled to do things differently, to suspend the rules, because they were fulfilling a mission...

...Youth measures in only one direction, it is said, from things as they are to an ideal of what they ought to be...

...Personal and partisan fortunes are at stake, and behind them the interests they represent...

...Woodrow Wilson urged that "What we should seek to impart in our colleges . . . is not so much learning itself as the spirit of learning...

...Thinking Aloud THE UNIVERSITY AND PUBLIC LIFE BY ARCHIBALD COX Thirty-five years ago Judge Learned Hand, paying tribute to those who taught him at Harvard, spoke of "an aloofness from burning issues, which is hard for generous and passionate men" but is required for the "consecration of the spirit to the pursuit of truth...

...Disregard of normal constraints by some breeds further disregard on the part of others...

...Next among the teacher-scholar's contributions might be an insistence upon reasoned and therefore principled action even at the cost of immediate objectives...

...Nor is there room for persuading a student organization to cancel a debate between invited speakers because another group of students considers the mere expression of one participant's views offensive...

...A few years ago a Senate committee had need of information about "the pill," and scientists were called to testify...

...The scholar does not know the truth he seeks, he lacks even the assurance that there is a truth, yet he believes that by putting one foot before the other, despite false starts and blind alleys, he may make a little progress...

...We need the university's example, then, to hold us to a way of life...

...The ill-constructed legacy of the impeachment of Andrew Johnson goes far to explain our present floundering...

...and that we have the best chance to exemplify and bring them to bear in our public lives and through our students...

...I am more concerned about the intellectual effort omitted in pursuit of political action...

...Indeed, the teacher's familiarity with the sideshows and gimmicks may have a minus value, because their fascination can distract him from the hard substance...

...He may gain a degree of knowledgeability, to be sure, and perhaps even a degree of political sophistication...

...The link between learning and policy, between academe and the public realm, seems indissoluble...

...Nor will the professor, once having tasted the joys of action, willingly become the monk...

...I am not thinking only of the classes untaught, the books unwritten and the students neglected because Professor A is too busy preparing briefs...

...The course of the proceedings may determine the results of national elections in 1974, 1976 and even beyond...

...Shall no more be required of a man to remain in office than that he refrain from committing a criminal offense...

...that efforts are made to suppress debate...

...State and Federal authorities, industry, foundations, and community organizations call increasingly upon individual scholars and universities for active participation as well as expert opinion...

...Do I keep still, which may be another form of default...

...the members of the other side invariably give a view of scientific fact supporting the insurance companies from whom they draw their compensation...

...Some way must be found, therefore, to reconcile the scholar's participation in public life with his, and his university's, dedication to the concerned and disinterested pursuit of truth...

...Beneath the surface, though, long-range questions are involved, and university men and women should try to focus attention upon them...

...One of the most pressing issues of constitutional law is whether, under the 14th Amendment, a university may give special consideration to members of disadvantaged minority groups like blacks, Chi-canos and American Indians in selecting an entering class of students out of a group of applicants more numerous than the places available...

...One recalls the scientists testifying about "the pill...

...while the old measure things as they are against the remembered past...

...Should not the same objections be raised when the staff or possibly some member of the Ervin Committee leaks the results of incomplete investigation, gives out the accusatory inferences it draws from secret testimony, and even releases proposed findings of guilt upon men under indictment and awaiting trial...

...By that he meant what Learned Hand described as the "consecration of the spirit to the pursuit of truth...

...It may clarify my theme, however, to particularize some details of what the scholar-teacher may aspire to bring to government and which alone would justify his venture...

...So, too, upon our joint human adventure we do not know the goal, we have no proof there is a goal, but we can catch glimpses of a bright potential and see that by reason, mutual trust and forbearance man may learn to walk a little straighter...

...There is no assurance even of this, but there is joy in the endeavor...

...Still, the question can hardly be mine alone...

...As anyone who has served in government knows, along with the blunderers, the time-servers, the corrupt and the overly-ambitious, there are many men and women occupying offices high and low who faithfully observe the line between policy and moral principle...