INTERFERENCE IN CALIFORNIA

To the Editors of the CRIMSON:

At Harvard autonomy of action by the University is a matter of fact, and unwillingness to bow to external pressure has been demonstrated at all levels, from the President's stand against loyalty oaths to the Athletic Dept.'s refusal to submit to NCAA policing. It is thus easy to assume academic freedom to be a matter of fact on American campuses. I had felt that the battle was won and the precedent irrevocably set more than sixty years ago when the University of Wisconsin gained freedom from interference by state legislature. I have recently learned from conversations with members of several California faculties that a rear-guard action complete with credibility gap is being fought there. The precedent of sixty years ago is apparently too recent a development to have found its way into Governor Reagan's world historical picture.

The only manifestation of governmental interference in California higher education which has received widespread press coverage is Kerr's dismissal. Other smaller incidents have never come to light because members of the reactionary Los Angeles power cartel which both supports and steers Reagan also control the Los Angeles newspapers. A member of the Chandler family on the Board of Regents voted against Kerr.

Widespread fear of dismissal exists among University of California faculty members who are publicly proclaimed liberals or dissenters. As many as six non-tenured professors may have already been let go, although there is apparent confusion about this, even among fellow faculty members. Faculty travel funds have been recently interfered with, if not frozen, keeping representatives of the University of California from attending the recent national College Art Association meetings, unless they paid their own way. A segment of one campus newspaper has been suspended for publishing a nude by the early twentieth century German artist George Grosez, a drawing which has been previously published in books about the artist.

The most simplistically self-righteous act of interference came when administrators at UCLA chose to act on complaints from several students or their families that pictures of nudes were being shown in an art history course. Crank complaints of this sort have apparently occurred as long as art history courses have been given but significantly enough have been ignored prior to Reagan's becoming Governor. In a state where the public schools are headed by a man so reactionary he opposes use of textbooks mentioning the UN, it is frightening to contemplate extension of this conservative vise-grip to higher education. Mr. Reagan and Mr. Rafferty seem to share one mind, possibly one wit. Louis Nateshon '63   Graduate School of Design