Twentieth Alexander Meiklejohn Award

Academe, Sep/Oct 2000

WILLIAM H. DANFORTH, CHANCELLOR of Washington University in St. Louis from 1971 to 1995, was the recipient of the twentieth Alexander Meiklejohn Award at the Eighty-sixth Annual Meeting of the AAUP in Washington, D.C., on June 9, 2000. The award is presented to an American college or university administrator or trustee, or to a board of trustees as a group, in recognition of an outstanding contribution to academic freedom. The executive committee of the AAUP chapter at Washington University nominated Chancellor Danforth for the award. Michael W. Friedlander (Physics) is chapter president; members of the executive committee are Susan Appleton (Law), Edward Greenberg (Economics), Sandor Kovacs (Medicine), Sheldon Helfman (Architecture), Sondra Schlesinger (Microbiology), and Barbara Shrauner (Electrical Engineering).

Nomination

The executive committee of the AAUP chapter at Washington University in St. Louis has great pleasure in forwarding the name of Dr. William H. Danforth for consideration for the Alexander Meiklejohn Award for 2000. Dr. Danforth was chancellor of Washington University in St. Louis for twenty-four years, 1971-95.

This award has usually been given in recognition of a single outstanding action taken by an administrator or a board of trustees. However, there is another role that is no less important for the defense of academic freedom and tenure-that role is the daily, consistent defense of academic freedom over an entire career by a leader in higher education. It is for his contributions in this style that Bill Danforth is being nominated. Before describing his contributions that extended over so many years, it will be helpful to describe the political and academic climate at Washington University when fie assumed the chancellorship in July 1971.

This was a difficult time for many colleges and universities. Washington University has a strong tradition of respecting academic freedom, but during the 1950s, it was also a favorite target of the morning newspaper, the St. Louis Globe-Democrat, now no longer being published. One of Dr. Danforth's predecessors as chancellor, Ethan A, H. Shepley, had received the Meiklejohn Award for 1959 for his vigorous defense of the university and of academic freedom against attacks from the Globe and its supporters, such as occurred when Linus Pauling was invited to speak and used the occasion to launch his famous and influential petition calling for the cessation of nuclear weapons testing.

A dozen years later, as the war in Vietnam grew more intense, Washington University was again the focus of critical commentary. The campus was the scene of antiwar protests culminating in the burning of the campus ROTC buildings in May 1970. Shepley's successor, Chancellor Thomas H. Eliot, had been equally vigorous in defending freedom of expression and the right of peaceful assembly on the campus. He was called upon to defend both the ways in which the university's disciplinary apparatus had dealt with student protesters and the university's refusal to rein in outspoken faculty. Eliot survived a noconfidence vote in the board of trustees by the narrowest of margins, but stepped down in 1971 on reaching the usual retirement age.

It was against this background that Dr. Danforth assumed the position of chancellor. Before that, he had been a highly regarded professor of medicine and then vice chancellor for medical affairs. By the early 1960s, tensions had been mounting, descending to open hostilities, between Edgar Monsanto Queeny, chair of the board of the Barnes Hospital group, and the dean of the School of Medicine. The chair of the university's board of trustees was James S. McDonnell (of McDonnell Aircraft), and the principals were noted for the vigor with which they defended their positions. While financial matters were at the root of the problem, Queeny did not seem to appreciate the role of full-time medical faculty, as compared to the physicians whose only role was seeing patients. An agreement between the university and the hospitals was reached in 1964, but when Dr, Danforth assumed the vice chancellorship one year later, there were still many scars, and it was his quiet diplomacy that was largely responsible for the smooth implementation of a complex agreement.

As the activism on campus increased and with it criticism of the role of some faculty, it was realized that the university policy on tenure and academic freedom required review. The relevant document was then little more than a slim pamphlet; it set forth the correct values but had little to say on the details and procedures. In 1970 Chancellor Eliot asked the executive committee of the Washington University chapter of the AAUP to draft a new statement of policy. This was a major undertaking. Drawing on the 1940 Statement of Pinciples and the AAUP's Recommended Institutional Regulations, the AAUP executive committee produced a draft, which was then taken up by the faculty senate council with later review by the educational policy committee of the board of trustees. After extended discussions, the final result, carrying the title "Policy on Academic Freedom, Responsibility, and Tenure," gained the approval of the faculty senate. Though some administrations resist the adoption of clear and written procedures (or simply ignore them), this has never been a problem at Washington University. With the unwavering support of Dr. Danforth, the new policy was adopted by the board of trustees in 1975. This document has served us well. There have, of course, been changes over the years, responding to changing circumstances, but there has never been any doubt about where Dr. Danforth stood. Support for and belief in academic freedom have been a constant factor in his career as chancellor.