Davis' statement to
21 October
University Community
University of Nebraska, Lincoln
The Regents of the Univers
ity of Nebraska have reversed
themselves and , made a full
disclosure of the specific com
plaints leading to their action
of August, 1970, which stopped
processing of my appointment.
They did so In the attached
letter of 14 October. I now
release that letter to the
University community thanking
the Regents for their belated
courtesy and congratulating
them for having the courage to
change their mind.
I have put off releasing the
letter for several days to allow
myself time to prepare a
suitable answer. I felt that,
under the difficult
circumstances of public debate
of a complicated question by a
large and diverse community, it
would be improper to release
the Regents' letter without
correcting certain errors it
contains, filling in Important
details it omits, and putting Us
conclusions in perspective.
I shall first discuss the com
plaint, then the reasons those
complaints are supposed to
support, and finally the
significance of the Regents ac
tion of 16 August.
The Regents list four specific
complaints. I shall take them
up in order:
1. THE RECEPTION. An
unnamed person, whom the
Regents consider responsible,
reported that I spoke at a
reception held after
MU President Robert Fleming
was inaugurated and that I said
something like "the word from .
'Wisconsin people' is that
Fleming could not be
trusted ..." The report is
false. I think the informant
confused two events, only one
of which involved me. The one
that involved me was not the
reception after the inaugura
tion but the inauguration itself.
(I did not attend the reception.)
I spoke at the Inauguration,
before an audience of about
4,000 dignitaries, faculty,
students, and townspeople, as
part of tlie formal program and
as the official representative
of the student body. (I was then
administrative vice president
of student government council.)
What I said in that speech is a
matter of public record, the
text having been placed in the
Michigan archives and
reprinted in the Michigan Daily
MONDAY, OCTOBER 26, 1970
of 14 March, 1968. The speech
did not contain the sentence
cited in the Regents' letter.
2. THE FAST. I'm glad the
Regents chose to read the
statement I made concerning
my fast I am, however,
surprised that they did not in
dicate mat they only learned of
the statement from 13 Oct.,
1970, that they got t h e I r copy
through Professor Dewey, who
got it from me, or that in the
part they did not quote I gave
a reasoned defense of the fast
(Including, among my reasons,
the need to prevent violence.) I
hope that, before anyone
evaluates the sentences quoted
in the Regents letter, he will
first read the whole statement
(printed in that Michigan Daily
of March 13, 1970.) The sen
tences quoted look much more
reasonable in context.
3. THE T R E S P A S S. The
trespass occured in September
of 1968 (not in November as
indicated in the Regents let
ter.) The following details
should help in judging the act:
"The trespass occured as part
of a sit-in of about 400 people in
the Washtenaw county building
to protest inadequate payments
to mothers on welfare.
(There were children in Ann
Arbor who did not have
clothing in which to go to
school, while the county board
refused to touch . $100,000
surplus available from the
previous year.) I was arrested
without incident along with
about 200 others. The next day,
the board reversed itself. A
month later, I pleaded nolo
contendrc, in district court. In
November I was sentenced to
10 days in jail, fined $15 and
costs, and put on probation 90
days. I served the 10 days in
late November, and was
released from probation in
March "with Improvement." I
had not before, and I have not
since, been convicted of any
offense in any court of law.
4. TESTIFYING. The report
is inaccurate. I did not use the
words 'repressive', and 'non
communicative. The report is
also incomplete. It fails to give
enough detail for a fair
evaluation of what I did say.
The facts are these: I was
testifying before an appropria
tions commtitce of the
Michigan legislature. The
committee was considering the
University's budget, which in
...do what you warrt to do, go vhere
bl)T tlnmk for yourself. . .
-geovge tiarrisGR
the University community
cluded an anti-disruption sec
tion. Another student and I,
representing the student
government council, made a
general presentation explaining
why students sometimes
disrupt, pointing out how
punitive legislation could only
make things worse, and urging
the committee to revise the
section. The presentation
characterized the University
administration as sometimes
arbitrary or irrational. One
committee member asked for
an example. I gave him the
first that came to mind, the
then-recent administration's
refusal to permit a regional
conference on homosexuality.
The example apparently
satisfied the committee
member. (He neither asked for
another example nor criticized
the one given.) I think much of
the example's effect came from
two details omitted from the
Regents' complaint: A. that
President Fleming was willing
to permit a statewide con
ference (not a regional one)
and, B. that he was willing to
permit a homosexual dance.
Reasonable men may perhaps
disagree, but I still think it a
good example.
The Regents say they con
cluded from those four com
plaints that I am "intellectually
arrogant and lacking in tact,
objectivity and judgment." I do
not believe the evidence war
rants that conclusion, but I am
willing to admit that I am not
perfect and, for the purposes of
discussion, at least I am even
willing to admit all the faults of
character the Regents charged
me with.
What follows from that ad
mission? Docs it follow that I would
not be a good teacher? Ap
parently not. It is the judgment
of my department (and the
cour.se evaluation made by
students) that I am a good
teacher. N
Docs it follow that I would
not be a good scholar? Ap-
fiarcntly not. I have made my
etters of recommendation
public. It should be plain from
them that there is good reason
to lhhk that I will be a good
scholar.
Does it follow that I have
nothing to contribute to the
good governance of a
university? Apparently not.
Though I have often disagreed
witli administratori here at
THE NEBRASKAN
Michigan, they do not consider
me a danger to the good order
of the University. And they
have sometimes adopted pro
posals I have made. I am cur
rently sitting on the President's
ad hoc committee on a
permanent university judiciary
along with two Regents, three
deans, three faculty and seven
students. (See University
' record, 19 October, 1970).
But if nothing seems to follow
from that admission, what are
we to make of the four com
plaints? There are, I think, five
reasons for concluding that my
character is not really the
issue.
First: The Regents, who are
intelligent men, know that one
cannot judge character from a
few isolated incidents like
those recounted in their letter.
They know that they are 850
miles away from the facts upon
which I acted, and so, in no
position to judge my tact,
judgment, or objectivity
themselves.
Second: They have not asked
someone closer to the facts to
make the judgment for them.
Though they accepted their in
formant's reports as
"responsible," they did not ac
cept his judgment. His judg
ment was, I believe, that what
he reported was not grounds
for not appointing me.
Third: The Regents did not
try to get information con
cerning my character from
their own Philosophy Depart
ment. That is strange, if what
they wanted was information
about my character. I spent
many hours talking to
members of th e department
during the two days in May I
spent in Lincoln before the in
itial offer was made. Their in
sight could have been helpful if
what the Regents wanted was
information about . my
character.
Fourth: The regents have
never shown any interest in
interviewing me directly to find
out what kind of person I am.
Surely that would have been
the surest and quickest way to
gather such information.
And fifth: The Regents have
not done anything else one
would think wise for someone
trying to make a fair judg
ment of someone else's
character.
Perhaps I can make the
same point another way. The
four complaints do not add up
you're going .-to,
to a serious fault in character
(even accepting the Regents
inaccurate account of the
facts). They consist of A. an
act of social indiscreticn, B. a
declared willingness to commit
a low misdemeanor, Cv an
earlier commission of such a
misdemeanor and D . a
criticism of a public person.
Would those four complaints be
considered worth commrnt in
evidence of their political
content? Would the Regents
have decided as they did if I :
had only insulted an East .,
German consul during a '
reception in Detroit, said
publically I would hunt on a :
certain farmer's land whether
he liked it or not, been con- ,
victed of such an offense once
before, and recently been .
quoted condemning Governor , ;.
Milliken for being scft on , ,
gangsters? I think not.
We are left then with several
questions: What is there in the
four complaints that has made
the Regents anxious about my
appointment? Could it be that
all the talk of character is ir
relevant? That the real issue is
one of politics? That what the
Regents want of new f aculty is
a history of abstlnance from
political action, especially
where that action concerns the
governance of a university?
Could it be that the Regents "
prevented my appointment
because they were afraid that
my political activity would
make it harder for them to deal
with the legislature and their
constituents back home? That,
after all there is In their action
a question of academic
freedom and civil liberties?
To these questions I should
like to add one more: What
were the Regents trying to
do when they wrote their let
ter? The letter seems less a
statement of the original
reasons for the decision of 18
August than a justification of
that decision after the fact. 1
say that for two reasons. First :
the Regents have concluded in
their list of complaints Mint
. they knew as of August or
September (for example my
conviction for trespassing n n d
the statement concerning my
fast.) Second: Vice Chancellor
Ross made several in
vestigative phone calls to Ann
Arbor early last week to find
out more about me.
I leave It to the University
community to answer these
questions.
Mike Davis
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