RECENTLY A LETTER WAS SENT BY THE PRESIDENT OF AMHERST COLLEGE TO PRESIDENT NIXON ON THE SUBJECT OF CAMPUS STRIFE AND ITS CAUSES. THIS LETTER WAS SIGNED BY MOST OF THE FACULTY AND STUDENTS. IF ENOUGH LETTERS OF THIS TYPE ARE SENT FROM UNIVERSITIES AROUND THE COUNTRY, THEY COULD CONCEIVABLY INFLUENCE THE DECISIONS OF THE GOVERNMENT ON THE MANY MATTERS WITH WHICH WE ARE CONCERNED. WE INTEND TO SEND THE ACCOMPANYING LETTER TO PRESIDENT NIXON, WHICH ALL STUDENTS, FACULTY AND STAFF ARE URGED TO SIGN. DR. PITZER HAS PROMISED TO SEND IT TO PRESIDENT NIXON WHEN A SUFFICIENT NUMBER OF SIGNATURES IS OBTAINED. AT THE SAME TIME, STUDENTS, FACULTY AND STAFF ARE URGED TO WRITE TO THEIR FRIENDS IN UNIVERSITIES THROUGHOUT THE NATION SUGGESTING THAT THEY WRITE A SIMILAR LETTER. EXTRA COPIES OF THIS LETTER ARE AVAILABLE AT THE OFFICE OF PROFESSOR GORDON §. KINO, ROOM 34, MICROWAVE LABORATORY, PHONE 72289. SPONSORING FACULTY ARE: Gordon Kino Marvin Chodorow James Gibbons Felix Bloch Robert Glaser David Hamburg Joseph Pettit Moses Abramovitz William Baxter Edward Shaw Sanford Dornbusch Arthur Kornberg Joshua Lederberg Wolfgang Panofsky Ezra Solomon Donald Kennedy William Clebsch Robert McAfee Brown Gabriel Almond Halsey Royden Carl Djerassi David Nivison Leonard Schiff James Gibbs Elliott Levinthal FORMS FOR SIGNATURE WILL BE AVAILABLE IN THE DEPARTMENTS AND AT VARIOUS LOCATIONS ON CAMPUS. Dear Mr. President: This letter is prompted by an earlier one which you received from Amherst College, and by a speech delivered by Dr. Pitzer, President of Stanford University, to the Board of Trustees. At Stanford University, just as at many other institutions, we have recently had some student disturbances of a disruptive nature. Although the majority of students and faculty disapprove of this form of protest, it is also true that a majority of the University community identifies with the moral sentiments which led to these outbreaks. We feel you should realize that such outbreaks are symptoms of the frustrated feelings of most of us on this campus, and indeed on most university campuses in the United States, that there are major deficiencies in the country in urgent need of correction. A prin- cipal problem, of course, is our involvement in Viet-Nam. There do seem to be indications in the news media at present that your Administration is trying to extricate our country from this involvement. If this is indeed the case, we can only add our strong encourage- ment and support. However, on the other major problems of our country, there seems to be no sense of urgency communicated by the Government to the public at large and it appears that very little is being done by the Executive Branch and the Congress to improve the situation. In the absence of such urgency, we feel that the universities of the country will not remain tranquil. The following quotation from the Amherst statement eloquently presents our sentiments, and we subscribe to it completely. We have also as a college embraced a new sense of urgency of another kind. We believe that we must speak out to make clear that much of the turmoil among young people and among those who are dedicated to humane and reasoned changes will continue. It will continue until you and the other political leaders of our country address more effectively, massively and persistently the major social and foreign problems of our society. Part of this turmoil in universities derives from the distance separat-— ing the American dream from the American reality. Institutions dedicated to the nurture, husbanding, and growth of critical intelligence, and to inquiry. into basic problems cannot but open people's eyes to the shoddiness of many aspects of our society. In yesterday's New York Times it was reported that five officers in your Cabinet ‘seemed to agree that the disorder was caused by a small minority of students.’ Our conviction is that such a view is seriously in error if it is taken to mean that no legitimate and important reasons exist for the anger and sense of impotence felt by many students and faculty. The pervasive and insistent disquiet on many campuses through- out the nation indicates that unrest results, not from a con- spiracy by a few, but from a shared sense that the nation has no adequate plans for meeting the crises of our society. To name only one issue of special concern to the students: since the Kerner Commission's report, there has been no decisive response to its recommendations. ~2 We do not say that all the problems faced by colleges and universities are a reflection of the malaise of the larger society. That is not true. But we do say that until poli- tical leadership addresses itself to the major problems of our society -- the huge expenditure of national resources for military purposes, the inequities practiced by the pre- sent draft system, the critical needs of America's 23,000,000 poor, the unequal division of our life on racial issues -- until this happens, the concern and energy of those who know the need for change will seek outlets for their frustration. We realize that in writing this letter we have taken the unusual step of speaking publicly for our community on press- ing issues of the moment. We do this out of an urgent concern to question the widely held view that university unrest is merely an internal problem, or at most fomented by an outside influence. More, we believe that if political leaders act on this mistaken assumption, their actions will serve only to widen the separa- tions within the university and between the universities and society at large. If however, this important element in student unrest is under- stood, it would be possible for you, Mr. President, to redirect youthful energy toward those more idealistic, creative and generous actions which reflect a concer for others. Your influence can provide that hope which encourages those visions to which young men so gladly dedicate themselves, and we will support those efforts.