Excerpt from Economic Power vs. Academic Freedom: a Case Study

ECONOMIC POWER VS. ACADEMIC FREEDOM: A CASE STUDY Excerpts from the diary of Henry Anderson with analysis by Gilbert Gonzalez, University of California, Irvine Ap; ril 8, 1965 : Kafka lives! Tonight was the night I was coerc|ed in^to attending a meeting of the so-called Adademic Freedom Committee of the UC Berkeley Academic Senate. When I received my "invitation" to appear from the chairman of the committee, I could tell from his tone of voice that I was not to be viewed as a "friendly wit ness" -- someone whose academic freedom had been impinged on. Rather, my November^ KPFA commentary had dared to question the virtue of the old boys1 club and thereby I had somehow impinged on its academic freedom. But I was not fully prepared for the extent to which the club defends itself. For two solid hours, I was grilled as though Шу KPFA remarks were a felonious offense I tried my best to get the committee turned toward its proper jurisdiction -- which, I think, does not include criticism of radio scripts by people who have no connection with the univer¬ sity. I couldn't get them to see that anything untoward had happened on their beloved campus. They were particularly obsessed by what I had said about Clark Kerr. I told them about my meeting with Kerr in February, 1959, and his saying he had read my AFSC statement. Why would he have used his valuable time to read it if he had played no part in the decision-making process? They paid no more attention to