Email message, February 15, 1996

From: Robert S. Boyer, University of Texas at Austin

To: Professor Douglas Laycock, Chairman,
Committee of Counsel on Academic Freedom and Responsibility,
School of Law,
University of Texas at Austin

Dear Professor Laycock,

I thank you and the Committee of Counsel on Academic Freedom and Responsibility for meeting to discuss academic freedom in the context of the Freeport threats to UT faculty.

I agree with some, but not all, of what is contained in your letter to Reuben McDaniel of January 23, 1996, reporting on the discussions held at that meeting. I certainly agree with you that voluntary restraint in the criticism of donors is a good rule of thumb for professors. It is a corollary of the adage not to bite the hand that feeds. For example, I cannot imagine publicly attacking a donor merely because of his political views.

However, another adage is that every rule has its exceptions, and it is my opinion that in the Moffett case a rare exception to the rule against donor criticism may be found.

It is not every donor that we see getting bad press even from the staid National Geographic, as in the February 1996 issue, where we read such remarks as:

• Highland villagers have claimed that Freeport drove them off their traditional lands.
• The mining giant has met fierce opposition from tribal groups who claim tailings have caused the flooding of their lands.

It is not every donor whom we see getting ridiculed in the New York Times, which facetiously awarded Freeport the "Academic Freedom Award" (Dec 24, 1995) in its list of ridiculous things done by businesses in 1995, with the citation "After a group that included students from Loyola University in New Orleans staged a demonstration denouncing the company's environmental record, Freeport angrily demanded that the university return money that had been donated to endow a chair in environmental communication."

It is not every donor that our student government attacks (May, 1995) with such extremely harsh resolutions as:

• Resolved that the Students' Association condemns the naming of the new Molecular Biology Building the Louise and James Robert Moffett Building
• Resolved that the Students' Association also condemns the naming of one wing of the aforementioned building the Freeport wing
• Resolved that the Students' Association encourages the Board of Regents to rename the aforementioned building in a manner which reflects the ideals of the students, faculty, and staff of the University of Texas

If I had been present at your committee's meeting, I would have emphasized the history and details of this particular case, and I would have observed that naming a building for Moffett has and, in my opinion, will continue to have damaging effects upon the university. To limit that damage is my main motivation for speaking out, my justification for breaking the general rule to be polite about donors.

Already the university has lost Steven Feld, who was, at the time he left, in protest of the building naming and other Freeport matters, the youngest member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences at UT. (Your Charles Alan Wright is one of the 15 non-emeritus UT members of the Academy.) You should note that Feld has for twenty years been doing research with the indigenous people on the island of New Guinea, where Freeport's controversial mine is located. So please note that in Feld's case, his criticism of Freeport's impact on those indigenous people was very much "part of the critic's ongoing teaching and research," precisely the criterion that your letter suggests should be observed by those faculty who do criticize donors. In fact, the largest part of the criticism of Freeport that I have posted on my web page on this controversy, http://www.cs.utexas.edu/users/boyer/fp, is based upon material that I have received through Steven Feld, via his numerous contacts in that extremely remote part of the world.

As far as I know, the failure to retain Steven Feld was the greatest blunder by the administration of any American university in 1995. I believe that the American intellectual establishment is going to shake its head in amazement about this loss of Feld for a very long time.

My fear of future damage is not without some substantiation. The Daily Texan has already unearthed suggestions that the university is encountering trouble recruiting chair holders to occupy the new molecular biology building because of its name.

I would hope that by a thorough examination of the details of this case, many of which are available at URL {www.utwatch.org/corporations/freeportfiles/}, your committee too might come to the realization that the Moffett case is a legitimate exception to the rule not to criticize donors.

Sincerely,

Robert S. Boyer, Professor, Computer Sciences and Philosophy