sie STANFORD UNIVERSITY MEDICAL CENTER
ey STANFORD, CALIFORNIA 94305

 

August 19, 1974
STANFORD UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF MEDICINE

Department of Genetics
(415) 497-5052

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President W. Ferguson
University of Connecticut
Storrs, Connecticut 06268

Dear Dr. Ferguson,

I am informed that Professors Ginsburg and Laughlin are being
attacked as racists and that you are being pressed to dismiss them!

Indeed, if contrary to the fact these investigators were manifest
racists, using their academic positions to legitimize repressive policies
rather than the pursuit of new knowledge, you would face an agonizing
dilemma of the bounds of free speech and free inquiry, That is not the
problem here. To confuse reputable scientists like Ginsburg and Laughlin
with a polemicist like Shockley is to encourage an attack on all truth-
oriented research in the social and human sciences. The matter is even
more curious, since by their reputation and the public statements known
to me, Ginsburg and Laughlin can hardly be described as racists; on the
contrary, they have worked hard to controvert pseudoscientific
justifications of racism.

If they are successfully victimized, it will mean that the only
acceptable answer to the Shockley's of this world is an equally emotional
rhetoric and defamation, and a similar appeal to prejudgment in place of
dispassionate scientific inquiry.

This illuminates why such unlikely targets, eminent scientists like
Ginsburg and William Laughlin, are chosen for attack. There is ample
precedent for the revolutionary doctrine of destroying the liberal center
with its dedication to open discourse. Its success will be measured by
the disruption of free inquiry, and by the transformation of every item of
research and of education into class-struggle politics!

It can be argued that the appeal to objectivity in science is
itself a political claim. I understand the merit of that allegation,
but also the enormous costs of accepting it. If that is the issue in the
current controversy, let it be identified and decided upon for what it is.

Others have expressed fears about the further pursuit of any research
on human differences, For reasons that stem in an obvious way from the
historical tragedy of our national past, race difference in the U.S.
strikes me as among the least amenable areas of biological research -
genetical, environmental.and social factors are too complexly interwoven,
not to mention too contentious, to be unravelled with the feeble methods
available for such research today. The problematics of this situation

LT. J. P. KENNEDY, JR. LARORATORIES FOR MOLECULAR MEDICINE, DEDICATED TO RESEARCH IN MENTAL RETARDATION

MOLECULAR BIOLOGY HEREDITY NEUROBIOLOGY DEVELOPMENTAL MEDICINE
President W. Ferguson -2- 8/19/74

1

must be clarified precisely so as to answer the racists,
as well as to approach how to most efficiently invest resources to
achieve social equality. But the only one who needs to fear such
research is the racist-in-his-heart who believes that objective
science might validate prejudice - an outcome that I for one
vehemently reject. From this perspective some of the attackers may
be the most tainted with racist ideology.

But this is not all really to the point, since Ginsburg and
Laughlin have had only the most peripheral involvement with specific
studies connected with race in the U.S. If they are under attack, it
must be a tragic combination of misinformation about their actual
scientific program, and a cynical campaign to convert academic inquiry
into political polarization; a campaign that if successful here will
find hundreds of more vulnerable targets in every field of
"uncommitted" scholarship.

I have not read every word they have written that might be used
against them, nor do I always agree with what I have read. Likewise,
only a regime of thought-control would imply that I agree with every
conclusion of others who support these men; just as I conceivably
might share common ground with some of their critics. My own research
programs have little to do with theirs. But I am shocked that they
should be subject to a harassment that would soon destroy the academic
tradition of quiet investigation and discussion of controversial
issues.

incerely yours, —

 
   

L-Soshua Lederberg
Professor of Genetics ‘

JL/rr