MANAGEABLE MEDIOCRITY' IN MCCARRAN'S NEVADA
Mechling, Tom
'Manageable Mediocrity' In McCarran's Nevada By Tom Mechling Reno THE recent attempt to stifle academic freedom and free speech at the University of Nevada is part of the pattern of political...
...II The Board of Regents backed up their president and fired Dr...
...They were charged with trying to "develop friction" on the campus by "spreading false information to infer the lowering of academic standards at the University...
...It has succeeded for many years in exercising control over the Board, and thus control over the University...
...George Malone in the 1952 elections...
...During the hearings, it also developed that the University authorities objected to Dr...
...Continued political control of the state by the McCarran machine rests now, as it has for a long time, principally on its control over the free flow of facts, ideas, and news...
...It means less upkeep for the University, less money from the state legislature, less state government...
...Richardson with that statement, inasmuch as he was an AAUP member...
...Richardson circulating among his colleagues a magazine article by Dr...
...Richardson and four of his fellow professors were first notified earlier this year by President Minard W. Stout "to show cause as to why you should be continued as a member of the faculty...
...The overall objective of the McCarran machine has been to keep the state of Nevada small and "controllable" and keep the state government in a "small, neat package" with the strings held in only a few hands...
...The unusual aspect of Dr...
...That is why the election of the Board of Regents of the University has always been of major consequence to the controlling machine, with the full weight of its resources thrown to picked candidates...
...In this manner it can silence any dissenting voice at the University, such as Dr...
...Arthur Bestor, Jr., professor of history at the University of Illinois, entitled, "Aimlessness in Education...
...Richardson, as local head of the American Association of University Professors, opposed this lowering of academic requirements...
...Richardson's...
...It was not meant to bring the affair to such widespread public attention when Dr...
...The counsel for the Board of Regents proceeded to paint the AAUP as communist-tinged by reading out of context from its 1948 policy statement...
...Richardson and his colleagues, fit the "neat package...
...Richardson's dismissal was that it blew out in the open and became the subject of public hearings and controversy throughout the state and nation...
...The University of Nevada has been inextricably linked with the politics of the state for many years through the five-member, elected Board of Regents...
...Richardson...
...Frank J. Richardson, chairman of the biology department at the University, was cloaked in charges of "insubordination" but was actually a poorly camouflaged attempt to suppress dissent and freedom of ex.-pression that are considered basic in any free government...
...The dismissal threat was sufficient to bring four of the five professors in line almost immediately...
...The summary dismissal of Dr...
...President Stout considered this a criticism of himself, for his previous educational background as head of the University of Minnesota laboratory high school, before becoming president of the University of Nevada TOM MECHLING, a crusading critic ol Pat McCarran's domination of Nevada, made a remarkable showing in his losing fight to unseat Sen...
...The article was critical of professional educators who lowered academic standards by eliminating "scholastic discipline subjects...
...Walter Van Tilberg Clark, the noted author and a bright light in the English department, joined him in resigning, saying the administration was trying to reduce the University to a "manageable mediocrity...
...The five professors were but vaguely accused in the letter...
...It means less tax money will be needed for the University from the big mining, gambling, and ranching interests which support the McCarran machine...
...Richardson was accused of meddling in politics...
...He was on the staff of the Kiplinger Newsletter until he decided, at age 31, to wade into the struggle for honest government in Nevada...
...It could not survive if the truth were allowed to reach the people...
...In the past, suppression of free expression out here has been taken care of quietly without public fuss or fanfare...
...Pat McCarran...
...At the three-day public hearings, it developed that President Stout had objected to Dr...
...The line of questioning associated Dr...
...Mechling served three years with the Office of Strategic Services during World War II...
...Manageable Mediocrity' In McCarran's Nevada By Tom Mechling Reno THE recent attempt to stifle academic freedom and free speech at the University of Nevada is part of the pattern of political control exercised over the state by the ruthless machine of Sen...
...By insinuation, association, and innuendo, the counsel pointed the way to the conclusion that everyone was supposed to draw...
...President Stout's move to lower academic standards at the University, approved by the regents and protested by Dr...
...However, Dr...
...And it means stifling academic freedom and the free flow of facts, opinions, and ideas that threaten the McCarran machine...
...Thus can machine politics reduce a democratic institution to a "manageable mediocrity...
...After that hearing, one of his four colleagues who had originally knuckled under to retain his position changed his mind and resigned too, with the comment that "the utter futility of arguing the case has been all too well demonstrated...
...President Stout had proposed last April, with the Regents' concurrence, to lower entrance requirements so as to allow any high school graduate to enter the University regardless of preparatory courses or his ability to complete his studies...
...Richardson, who had 12 years of tenure on the faculty, demanded to know the exact nature of the accusations against him and subsequently went on trial before the Board of Regents for "insubordination...
...They signed a written accord, acknowledging that the President was "boss" and that there would be no hint of criticism of his policies from then on...
...Richardson was the latest figure to get caught in the crosscurrents of two powerful conflicting ideas: One, the idea that a University should be an institution to search out the truth and to disseminate this truth, and the other that the free flow of facts, opinions, and news endangers continued political control of the state...
...Such "meddling" consisted of his being a member and officer in the organization (AAUP) which supported the alien teacher bill...
...Meanwhile, Bruce Thompson, one of the four Reno attorneys who defended Richardson without charge, announced an appeal would be taken to the Nevada Supreme Court...
...The University of Nevada has had six presidents in the past 12 years...
...Richardson associating himself with the American Association of University Professors' support of a measure then pending before the state legislature to allow alien professors to teach at the University on an exchange basis...
...last fall, was more administrative than academic...
Vol. 17 • September 1953 • No. 9
