Our Threatened Freedom

Should Universities Get Grants from Pentagon Funds for Research

Professor: Dr. R.J. Rushdoony

Subject: Political Studies

Lesson: 167-169

Genre: Conversation

Track: 167

Dictation Name: Vol. M - Part 11 - Should Universities Get Grants from Pentagon Funds for Research

Location/Venue: Unknown

Year: 1980’s – 1990’s

[Dr. Rushdoony] Should universities get grants from Pentagon fund for research? This is R.J. Rushdoony with a report on our threatened freedom.

Each year, the Defense Department awards grants to industry for research and for new technology. Such grants are necessary and proper, as long as they are honestly granted to the bidders who can deliver the best weaponry at the lowest prices. A lesser grant was to colleges and universities. The new contracts rose to eight hundred and fifty-two million dollars for the fiscal year, essentially for research. During the Vietnam war era, such grants were a major concern to the student protestors, and more than a few riots and incidents resulted. Spring of 1983 began with a student protest at Ann Arbor Michigan, against the University of Michigan’s Defense contracts.

Before the matter goes further, it would be wise to examine the issue carefully. It is fitting and right for industry to get such contracts, and industrial research and development departments are the major sources of our modern technology in every field. Few people appreciate the extent to which industrial research produces the inventions, technologies and advances of our era. Without industrial research, we would have very little technology and scientific advance.

In the development of technology, the role of the university is a very minor one. The university where science is concerned is more involved in teaching than in anything else. Moreover, its scientific concerns tend to be theoretical, not practical. As a result, the involvement of the universities in Defense Department grants or contracts is actually a minor matter. The 1982 contracts to industry totaled one hundred and sixteen point seven billion dollars, whereas those to colleges and universities came to eight hundred and fifty-two million dollars. In other words, it is much less than one percent of the total. Obviously, the Pentagon does not see university research as important. It is possible that such university grants are made partially towards funding those schools whose alumni are important in Congress and the bureaucracy.

It is questionable whether the grants to universities are very productive. What good the universities do could probably be better done elsewhere. Education will be better served if the contracts go elsewhere. This is not because defense work is demeaning to science, but because the essential purpose of a college and a university is and should be education. Whenever any kind of fat research contract is dangled before professors, teaching suffers, and the professors profit. With some schools, the rational is that a few students gain opportunities for more research, but the reality is that there are better options in industry, and teaching suffers when the university is involved in Defense contracts. We have too many universities greedy for such contracts, and education suffers as a consequence.

To harm or depreciate teaching is not practical.

This has been R.J. Rushdoony with a report on our threatened freedom.