Lysenko Theory Sets Off West Coast Imbroglio

August Leroy Strand is the president of Oregon State College in Corvallis, Oregon. He is an entomologist with some pretty definite ideas about "party liners" and their rights to teach. On January 14, 1949 Strand notified L. R. LaVallee, assistant professor of Economics, that he would not be reappointed. On February 8 he told Ralph Spitzer, associate professor of Chemistry, that he would not receive an appointment for the next academic year.

At the time Strand gave no reason for his decisions and he did not consult with the Department heads concerned. The professors were on a yearly contract, not yet protected by tenure regulations. In a statement to the CRIMSON, Strand said "We feel that we have the right to select our permanent staff regardless of what our reasons may be . . . Also we do not believe it is essential that college presidents be stupid or blind in defence to the purists of academic freedom, although readily admit that life would be much easier."

Strand Hits Letter

As yet Strand has given no explicit explanation for the firing of LaVallee. However when LaVallee was informed of his dismissal the only subject discussed with him by Strand was his activity with the Progressive Party.

In the ease of Spitzer, however, Strand has made several public statements. The cause of the chemist's dismissal was a letter he wrote to the editor of the Chemical and Engineering News, a chemical journal.

Spitzer, in the letter, took issue with an article in the News which attacked the Lysenko theory of genetics. The point of the Spitzer letter was that the Lysenko theory had not been given a scientific trial and that "in the interests of scientific objectivity" it would be wise to read the theory from source material rather than from condensed translations. Spitzer gave the impression that there was some evidence in support of the Russian theory, which is held in low repute by almost all western geneticists.

The Party Line

Dr. Strand's statement to the faculty on the Spitzer incident was based entirely on this letter, Strand asks, "Why should a chemist bother to stir up controversy in the field of genetics? I can tell you. It is because he sees right down the party line without any noticeable deviation and is an active protagonist for it."

Spitzer replied, "I did not stir up the controversy, but rather commenied on an editorial on Soviet genetics. The editorial was by a chemist, in a chemical journal, and was discussed by two other chemists in the same issue."

Strand, again in his statement charged. "He (Spitzer) supports the charistan Lysenko in preference to what he must know to be the truth." Spitzer answered. "I did not support Lysenko in my letter in any case, it is aboard to reason that agreement with a Soviet scientific theory is evidence of adherence to a party line."

President Strand in many of his public statements since the dismissals has taken membership in the Progressive party to mean compliance with the party line. In reply to a letter he has written, "I haven't received many letters like years from Oregon. Yours needs more like some that have come to me from Brooklyn. I think you have been reading too much communist propaganda that has appeared under the guise of the Progressive Party." In another letter Strand put "Communist organization apologists for the Soviet Union, officials of the Progressive Party, and many other fellow travellers" in the same category.

Closing his statement to the faculty, Strand said, "Many men in Soviet Russia have died in concentration camps, or by other means, because they would not accept the untruths which Ralph Spitzer has chosen to espouse . . . Dialectical materialism! A better name would be dialectical murder. The case is closed to far as I am concerned."

Both Spitzer and LaVallee are appealing to the American Association of University Professors.