Censuring of Teachers Hit By NSA Group

"The present tendency towards the negation of principles of academic freedom," was scored by the National Executive Committee of the National Student Association at its recent Cleveland meeting.

Membership in an association or organization should not ipso facto be the basis for punitive academic actions, the committee declared.

Frederic D. Houghteling '50, Harvard NSA delegate and regional treasurer, attended the meeting.

After drafting a statement of its views on academic freedom, the committee empowered its national staff to investigate the recent dismissals of professors from the University of Washington and Oregon State College and the expulsion of student James Zarichny from Michigan State College.

Attack Broyle Bills

Urging regional NSA groups to "review searchingly" all state legislation pertaining to academic freedom, the group charged that passage of the lllinois Broyle's Bills would result in "severe unconstitutional restrictions of academic freedom by unjustifiably limiting free speech and association."

(The Broyle Bills propose the outlawing of attendance at communist front meetings and call for the dismissal of teachers for "sufficient reason" or for teaching communism.)

The committee urged the immediate establishment of regional subcommissions on academic freedom and student rights. The functions of these groups would be to distribute information and to promote forums, conferences, and newspaper editorials on the subject.

The threat to the democratic character of our university community lies in the fact that "suspicious rumors and public and private pressure" have in many areas come to appear as genuine grounds for punitive academic actions, the committee maintained. In their place, must be substituted "calm objective deliberation" and "slow of proven fact," continued the committee. Not confidence but fear, it concluded, is the greatest weakness in our society.