Closing the 'open door'

The only government grant Harvard officials can recall having to turn down because of the danger of academic freedom being jeopardized didn't involve sensitive military research for the Department of Defense or high-energy physics research for the Department of Energy. Instead, the grant was from the Environmental Protection Agency for a Congressional pollution control project.

The faculty member declined to accept the grant because its contract included a "technical direction" clause, which would have allowed the federal government the power to direct the investigator's research.

Federal research grants in the past few years have been accompanied by increasingly restrictive terms, recent contracts with traditionally liberal agencies like the EPA and Department of Health and Human Services have included provisions for stricter publication review, technical direction by the sponsor, and funding rules.

And despite the fact that only one grant has actually been turned down, the University has begun to feel threatened in other, less tangible ways.

"We haven't felt the practical effects [of more restrictive government grants] like Caltech [the California Institute of Technology] and others," says John H.F. Shattuck, newly appointed vice president for government, community and public affairs, "but there are principles worth fighting for here."

Shattuck adds that there will be long-term damage to the academic community as a whole resulting from regulations restricting publication, prohibiting the exchange of information to foreign nationals, and labeling certain types of research classified."

Part of broader inroads into First Amendment rights, including the curtailment of the Freedom of Information Act, the more severe restrictions on sponsored research became prominent in 1981. Three regulations in particular since then have affected research at major universities.

In April 1982, President Reagan issued Executive Order 12356, widening the executive branch's discretion to classify certain research as "sensitive" in the national security context. Although some similarly restrictive attempts have been blocked by Congress, many inter-agency regulations bypass congressional review. In April of this year, for instance, the Department of Defense said it would place pre-publication clauses in some of its grants and contracts, though it has since relaxed some of the restrictions.

Currently, congressional debate over the parameters of the Export Control Act threatens to erode academic freedom further--"export" has come to include the exchange of papers at international conferences and presence of foreign nationals at American universities. A 1983 National Academy of Sciences staff report concluded that "the proposed rules [potential amendments to the Act] seem to have the potential to have a significant effect on the U.S. scientific enterprise."

Although Harvard has withstood the financial tightening of the past two years, it may not be able to do so in the future.

"For the first time, we can actually foresee turning down awards," says A. Simone Reagor, associate director for research administration, whose office negotiates all faculty proposals and sponsored research offers. While most of the 2000 contracts per year flow through the office smoothly--particularly those coming from the National Science Foundation (NSF) and National Institute of Health (NIH)--about 25 a year must be renegotiated to meet the Faculty of Arts and Science's relatively stiff policy on acceptances of

Harvard's policy, established by a Faculty committee in 1970 and last revised in October of 1983, consists of seven principles. The two relevant to recent federal proposals prohibit the acceptance of grants that "carry security classification" and restrict the investigator's right to publish findings.

These guidelines, which officials say are fairly rigid compared to other major research faculties, may mean a reduction in sponsored research grants for Harvard. At about $4 million annually, the University's Department of Defense-sponsored research projects may be lost if that branch's pre-publication proposal holds, says Richard B. Leahy, associate dean of the Faculty for research and allied institutions.

But Defense Department-sponsored research makes up less than 25 percent of Harvard's (including the Medical School) $106 million total budget from externally funded research grants and contracts. The majority comes from NIH ($67 million) and NSF ($14 million) awards. Even in the rare case of a loss of all Department of Defense monies, Harvard research funding as a whole would not decrease significantly.

In addition to direct funding losses, however, Faculty members seeking financial support would face other worries, says Shattuck.

"Not only would people turn down grants, but now they are thinking twice about applying for any grants with strings attached," he remarks.

Faculty members doing basic research--which is not intended to lead to a specific product to technology--used to be free from restrictions such as pre-publication review and technical direction clauses. But the line between basic and applied, or mission-oriented, work has become blurred, leaving all research work vulnerable to checks in the name of national security.

"What is basic research in one area may be applied in another or to a person with another objective," says Dean of the Division of Applied Sciences Paul C. Martin '51. For instance, some Harvard work in high-energy physics, funded by the Department of Energy, or NASA-funded projects could be considered to have practical applications in the long-term future, making them important for national security.

Proponents of the new Defense Department regulations and executive orders on research have cited the potential threat of "sensitive" information getting into the wrong hands as just cause for limitations on academic freedom.

At the 1982 gathering of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, then high-ranking CIA official Admiral Bobby Inman juxtaposed national security and academic freedom:

There is an overlap between technical information and national security which inevitably produces tension. This tension results from the scientist's desire for unconstrained research and publication, on the one hand, and the federal government's need to protect certain information from potential foreign adversaries who might use that information against this nation.

By Inman's yardstick, just about any scientific field--including research in agriculture, computers, and manufacturing procedures--has the potential for damaging U.S. national security.

Even a report authored by physicist Dale Corson, a former president of Cornell University, pointed out "gray areas" of research which might necessitate publication and other security checks.

But Shattuck insists that there need not be a trade-off between national security and academic freedom. "I think we get in a very dangerous bind when we face academic freedom off against national security," he says. In fact, he continues, the "great openness" of the "American scientific community is one of the country's national strengths.

Although many on the national level have attributed the stepped-up limitations on government-funded research to heightened concern with defense and national security issues, some at Harvard cite other causes for the tightening.

"My feeling is that it's trend that's been building gradually in the federal government, not specific to [the] Reagan [Administration]," Martin says, adding. "It just reflects a growing bureaucracy."

The "national security" debate, Reagor says, seems to confuse military with other issues of importance to the country's future. "Agencies seem to be moving more towards separating the government's interests from the public interest," she adds. This climate, she says, supports such research restrictions as the pre-publication and technical direction regulations.

But a top official in the Office for Sponsored Research, Patricia R. Benfari, disagrees. Benfari says the problem has been greater under the current Administration. Harvard negotiators have been successful in working out clauses which, if grants were accepted, would violate the Faculty's guidelines, but "It's harder to deal with Washington agencies now. It takes longer, and they're more rigid," she says. Last year, Benfari's negotiating team had to modify between 25 and 30 sponsorships to bring them up to Faculty standards of academic freedom.

The Office of Sponsored Research tackles the problem on a case-by-case basis, but other elements of the University go straight to the source--in groups.

Several organizations of colleges and universities plan to lobby heavily this year to prevent further encroachments on researchers' autonomy. These include the Council on Government Relations, "Little Eleven"--an informal group of the nation's top 11 research universities--and the Association of American Universities (AAU), to all three of which Harvard belongs.

University officials say Harvard has been slow to take the lead in responding to the Defense and other departments new regulations, primarily because Harvard has escaped concrete harm. But with President Bok chairing the AAU next year and Shattuck's interest in the issue, this is expected to change.

"We need to be in the lead, fighting for the integrity of research," Shattuck says, adding. "We haven't yet made this the priority that I plan to make it."

Still, Harvard will be far behind the early leads of universities like Caltech, MIT and Stanford, which will be hardest hit by the actual and proposed limitations on publication and exchange of research. In April, the presidents of the three universities formally protested the Department of Defense's announcement that it would be more liberal in classifying scientific research as "sensitive," making it subject to greater restrictions in publication. The presidents have met with officials, including Secretary of Defense Caspar W. Weinberger '38, says Allan J. Lindstrom, Caltech's sponsored research director.

A sizable chunk of Caltech's $50 million sponsored research budget comes from the Defense Department, but almost all of that amount goes for basic rather than applied research. Few new restrictions effect this money, according to Lindstrom, though researchers are required to submit their findings to the sponsor and publisher simultaneously. Because the publishing process takes between six months and two years before the findings appear, however, "the sponsor already has plenty of time to take a look at it, and talking to the professor is necessary," he says.

Lindstrom says he anticipates Caltech will turn down increasing numbers of federal grants and contract in the future, with the imposition of stiffer pre-publication review requirements.

But Harvard and other universities plan to make responses that go beyond simply rejecting contracts. "It's now become increasingly clear that the [federal government's] prevailing idea is that information has to be restricted to keep it from falling into the hands of countries who might be enemies of the U.S.," says Shattuck, "and we've got to respond accordingly."

Shattuck's office will conduct a study this summer to quantify the effects, if any, of the past two year's stiffer regulations on sponsored research funding.

After those results come in, Shattuck says, Harvard will form "coalitions and working groups with other institutions concerned about First Amendment issues."