U. of Washington Ex-Dean Hits at Speaker Refusals

Alfred J. Schweppe, former Dean of the University of Washington Law School, strongly criticized the three University professors who cancelled their speeches at Seattle as a result of its refusal to invite J. Robert Oppenheimer '26 as its Walker Ames Visiting Lecturer. "I've written Dean Griswold, asking him to correct these fellows opinions," he stated yesterday.

The Seattle lawyer claimed that the U. of Washington was correct in barring Oppenheimer from the lectureship because of his testimony before the Atomic Energy Committee. "The hearings indicate that he is an undesirable person with an unsavory record and the professors who won't speak here are being ridiculous," he said.

Schweppe also said he was not disputing the right of any college to ask Oppenheimer to join its faculty, but that he felt professors from other colleges should recognize the U. of Washington's right to choose its own teachers. "Most of the cancellations were from scientists and I wrote Griswold because I don't feel that those fellows can think straight," he said.

Three from University

Perry E. G. Miller, professor of American Literature, Konrad E. Bloch, Higgins Professor of Biochemistry, and Bert L. Vallee, associate in Medicine, are the three members of the Faculty Schweppe singled out. Miller had called the U. of Washington's decision a violation of the spirit of a free society's education system.

In a letter to the U. of Washington's President, Henry Schmitz, the scientists defended Oppenheimer and said that Washington had placed itself outside the "community of scholars" by acting in a manner contrary to the interests of academic freedom.