An Appreciation: Jordan E. Kurland and the Work of Committee A

In January Jordan Kurland gave up his major administrative responsibilities for staff work for Committee A on Academic Freedom and Tenure; he has been succeeded in that capacity by Martin Snyder. Kurland continues on the staff, busy as ever with case work and policy development. Bertram H. Davis, who wrote the reminiscences that follow, served for seven years as the AAUP’s general secretary. He subsequently served as chair of Committee A, and he remains affiliated with Committee A as a consultant

By Bertram Davis

Since the retirement of William Fidler in 1971, leadership for the staff’s work in academic freedom has been provided by Jordan Kurland, who joined the staff in 1965 on a leave of absence from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. He had been president of his AAUP chapter and executive secretary of the North Carolina Conference. And he came enthusiastically recommended by Frances Brown, professor of chemistry at Duke University and a member of Committee A and of the Association’s Council.

Jordan Kurland’s arrival at the Association’s Washington office was awaited with more than the usual interest aroused by a new staff member. For Jordan was not a specialist in English or in American history, like most of the rest of us. His field was Slavic studies. And he was known to have studied at Moscow State University! Although preparations by professional and administrative staff members for greeting this phenomenon probably went no further than learning the Russian for "yes," "no," "hello," and "good-bye," there was a detectable air of satisfaction that the office was no longer to be provincially American or American-English.

Jordan was put to work very quickly on academic freedom and tenure cases, and his qualifications became immediately evident—gratifyingly so because not everyone, not even every staff member, finds case work in academic freedom appealing. During the progress of a given case, the staff member assigned to it may have to play any number of roles: patient listener, reader-between-the-lines, detective, mediator, defense attorney, district attorney, magistrate, father or mother confessor, writer, historian, editor, proofreader. And he or she has to ask the right questions. Has the complainant provided the essential information? Does the information, if verified, suggest a possible violation of academic freedom or tenure? If there is an AAUP chapter, has the faculty member consulted chapter officers? Can the complaint be mediated by the staff or someone on the campus—or, better still, resolved by some timely advice? Does it warrant a staff letter requesting the administration’s response to the complaint? If mediation should fail, is the problem significant enough to warrant recommending the appointment of an investigating committee? Perhaps most important of all, the staff member and the complainant have to bear in mind that their relationship is not that of a lawyer and a client, helpful and sympathetic though the staff member may be: the staff’s primary obligation is to uphold the Association’s principles of academic freedom and tenure.

Jordan’s natural abilities and his North Carolina experience qualified him almost immediately for this often-complicated work, and it surprised no one that he performed it admirably. Nor was there any question, after William Fidler’s retirement, about Jordan’s assuming the major staff responsibilities in academic freedom and tenure. For Jordan there was an additional inheritance. Along with this leadership role he acquired the assistance of William Fidler’s extraordinarily competent administrative secretary, Evelyn Miller, who—now a senior member of the staff—is Jordan’s secretary still.

That change in the staff occurred twenty-nine years ago. And Committee A’s work during that period has continued so smoothly that one can only believe that another guiding hand like William Fidler’s was making sure that it didn’t go wrong—twenty-nine years during which Committee A has met nearly sixty times, over a hundred cases have been investigated by special committees and reported in Academe, and perhaps ten times that number have been settled by mediation or with the help of timely staff advice. And throughout this period, Committee A, relying heavily on the staff, has remained alert to the evolving social and academic scene, and developed new policies to help the academic profession through the thickets of hate speech and political correctness and the electronic maze of e-mail and the Internet.

The guiding hand, of course, has been Jordan’s. Modestly seeking no special recognition for himself, he has worked closely, not just with his immediate office associates, but with the general secretaries and Committee A chairs who have served during his many years with the staff. And he has constantly sought to attract new leaders to the Association and to seek the advice and assistance of former officers, staff, and committee members, many of whom have continued to serve on investigating and other Association committees. His closest colleagues, of course, have been the staff members who work with him from day to day and each of whom may handle any given case all the way through, from the time of initial complaint to publication of a report in Academe. For many years, much of this work has been accomplished with great efficiency by Jonathan Knight, who joined the staff in 1977, and Robert Kreiser, who joined it in 1982. Lesley Francis, who joined the staff in 1974 and served until her retirement in 1996, also made an important contribution.

In his vacations, Jordan and his wife, Anita, tend to travel—often in Europe, where he can put his knowledge of the Slavic languages to use. One incident suggests that he may be less fluent in the Romance languages, at least in one of them.

While they were traveling through Italy on a night train with Jordan by the window, the train came to a stop, and Anita asked Jordan to look out and tell her where they were. Jordan pulled up the shade and found a sign near enough for him to read. "We’re at Uscita," he informed her.

Apparently they exchanged seats so that, when the train stopped again an hour later, Anita was sitting by the window. "Jordan," she said, looking out, "where did you say we were at that last stop?" "Uscita," replied Jordan. "Well," said Anita, "we’re back there again."

Jordan’s resistance to the word "exit," even in Italian, is characteristic—and welcome. For he is not really "exiting" from the Association’s staff. He is giving up his supervisory position, but will continue as a member of the Committee A group, handling cases much as when he began his staff duties in 1965—but, of course, with a world of experience to guide both himself and others. The teaching profession, his beneficiary for many years, will long remain in his debt.

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