Statement of the AAUP Special Committee on Academic Freedom and National Security in a Time of Crisis
February 11, 2004
The AAUP's Special Committee on Academic Freedom and National Security in a Time of Crisis is deeply troubled by recent events in Des Moines, Iowa. The committee welcomes the decision of the U.S. Attorney to withdraw the subpoenas issued last week by a federal grand jury to gather information from Drake University. These subpoenas demanded extensive information about an anti-war conference held on its campus last November, and sponsored by the National Lawyers Guild. However, the committee continues to have concerns about the original incident. The subpoena demanded information about the officers of the Drake chapter of the Guild, meeting agendas and annual reports filed by that chapter with the university during the past two years, records of campus security officers that might include observations of the conference, records "relating to the scheduling of the conference," and the identities of "persons that actually attended the meeting."
We believe that such sweeping demands are suspect in any context. Our concern is compounded when the target of such demands is a university, and the catalytic event a campus conference sponsored by a student organization. While a university official may need to know the identity of a student group's officers, compelled disclosure of that information not only threatens the students' constitutional right to associate freely (and confidentially) for political purposes, but may well contravene federal laws that protect students' privacy. To demand the naming of all persons who attended a lawfully registered campus conference will undoubtedly chill protected expression, and deter participation at similar events in the future. To compel the university to reveal the contents of reports it received from a recognized student organization - especially when no such disclosure could possibly have been foreseen at the time those reports were filed - intrudes deeply and dangerously into the affairs of a group of students and encroaches upon freedom of expression and association.
Such governmental inquiries have been rare in the past half century. The case in which the U.S. Supreme Court in 1957 first embraced academic freedom bore striking similarities to recent events at Drake. New Hampshire's Attorney General had demanded detailed information about a visiting professor's lectures at the state university. Although the majority disallowed that demand on rather narrow grounds, Justice Felix Frankfurter insisted in his concurring opinion upon "the exclusion of governmental intervention from the intellectual life of a university." The need for such sensitivity is as appropriate today as it was five decades ago.
The Committee recognized in its November 2003 report "There may be points where some of our freedoms will have to yield to the manifest imperatives of security." We cautioned equally that "we should not yield those freedoms whenever the alarm of security is sounded." We set out clear standards by which to judge whether or not the government has justified abridging our liberties. From what appears from Des Moines, those standards were not met.
While the Association welcomes the withdrawal of the subpoenas, we continue to be troubled by the serious nature of the intrusion into a university community. As a result the AAUP will be working with our conference and chapters to sponsor a forum on academic freedom in Iowa in March, and will announce details in the very near future.