Academic freedom

Contra Costa Times 3/12/07

With its $500 million research grant to UC Berkeley and the University of Illinois, energy giant BP doubled the amount of money for biofuel research worldwide. The grant is a major victory for the universities in a field of study that is essential to the economic and environmental well-being of the nation and planet.

BP executives pledged $50 million a year for 10 years to the new Energy Biosciences Institute in Berkeley, where 25 teams of scientists will work on ways to develop more efficient biofuels, such as ethanol, and to reduce pollution.

Despite its promising scientific, technological and economic benefits, the grant has its detractors among the faculty and student body. They are critical of any grants from private businesses, evidently because they believe that corporate money somehow diminishes academic independence and freedom.

That notion, of course, is nonsense. UC Berkeley Chancellor Robert Birgeneau said as much at a meeting with students and faculty Thursday. He said those who oppose the new institute are themselves ignoring the tenets of academic freedom.

Regardless of the source of grant money, valuable research can be done. That is particularly true when universities, including UC Berkeley, restrict companies' control of the research they fund.

Birgeneau deserves much credit for pointing out that academic freedom does not exclude corporate grants. He said he considered opposition to research funding "abhorrent" and would "defend academic freedom to the hilt."

Too often academic freedom is so narrowly defined on some campuses that academic freedom itself is compromised.

Academic researchers should not be close-minded when it comes to sources of grants for important projects that promise to increase knowledge of any subject. Those who believe that corporate money diminishes academic freedom insult those faculty members who will be doing the research.

Besides, why would university students or faculty believe that money from private corporations is any more of a threat to academic freedom than money from nonprofit organizations or government sources, both of which often have their own agendas?

Universities should be open to all sources of ideas, viewpoints and funding. That is the very essence of academic freedom. It is telling that the UC Berkeley chancellor found it necessary to remind students and faculty of that basic principle.