Academics Protest Ford and Rockefeller Grant Terms

Academe, Sep/Oct 2004 by Censer, Marjorie J

In the wake of a 2001 United Nations conference in Durban, South Africa, at which Palestinian groups fimded by the Ford Foundation opposed Israel's right to exist and openly expressed anti-Jewish opinions, both the Ford and Rockefeller foundations recently added to their standard grant agreements new antiterrorist language. The Ford Foundation's addition reads, "By countersigning this grant letter, you agree that your organization will not promote or engage in violence, terrorism, bigotry or the destruction of any state, nor will it make subgrants to any entity that engages in these activities." The Rockefeller Foundation agreement says, "In accepting these funds, you . . . certify that your organization does not directly or indirectly engage in, promote, or support other organizations or individuals who engage, in or promote terrorist aetivity." The Ford Foundation has an endowment of $9.3 billion, and the Rockefeller Foundation has one of $2.6 billion. Both groups issue grants worldwide to universities and colleges, among others.

In a letter to the foundations, AAUP general secretary Roger Bowen protested the recent alterations, calling them threats to academic freedom when applied to institutions of higher education. He wrote, "It is flatly inconsistent with academic freedom to hold universities and colleges responsible for the beliefs and publications of their faculty. If these institutions were responsible for the views of their faculty, they would be obligated to censor and sanction views they believed to be inaccurate or dangerous. For this reason, academic freedom can flourish only if institutions of higher education are deemed to be no more responsible for the diverse ideas of their faculty than they are for the diverse contents of the millions of books in their libraries. Basic principles of academic freedom require that faculty viewpoints be regarded as the ideas of individual professors, not as those of the institutions of higher education that employ them."

Bowen's letter followed one sent in April by nine university provosts to the foundations, also protesting the new language. That letter was signed by the provosts of the universities of Chicago and Pennsylvania, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and Columbia, Cornell, Harvard, Princeton, Stanford, and Yale universities.

In July, Susan Berresford, president of the Ford Foundation, responded to Bowen's letter, assuring him that the foundation does "not intend to interfere with the speech of faculty." She added, "Our grant letter relates to the official speech of the university and to speech that the university explicitly endorses." Still to be addressed, however, is the actual wording of future grant agreements.

-M.J.C.