Wayne, Michigan U. Forbid Campus Speeches by Phillips

At least two midwestern universities will not let a Communist Party member speak on their campuses. They are Wayne, in Detroit, and the University of Michigan. The speaker is Professor Herbert J. Phillips.

Phillips is a philosophy teacher and an admitted card-holding Communist. He was fired from the University of Washington in January 1949, for "subversive leanings." Since then, Phillips has been touring the country, lecturing about his dismissal and debating academic freedom.

The Wayne student council voted to let Phillips debate a history professor on "Should a Communist Party member be allowed to teach at an American University?" The student council's approval was relayed to the university's program planning committee, which voted 6 to 3 permission for the debate, subject to veto by Wayne President David D. Henry. On March 28, Henry vetoed.

Henry told the planning committee that "in other years I have held that even a Communist should be heard in an educational setting, should there be an opportunity at the same time for the expression of contrary points of view. ...It is now clear... that the Communist is to be regarded not as an ordinary citizen... but as an enemy of our national welfare.... I cannot believe that the university is under any obligation, in the name of education, to give him audience."

The Editorial Director of the Detroit Collegian, Wayne's newspaper, wrote the CRIMSON that "Dr. Henry's action was probably taken because of our dependence upon.. the money granted us by the Detroit Board of Education."

Michigan Bar

Just under two weeks after Wayne's action, the University of Michigan took a parallel step In rejecting a student legislature petition asking that Phillips be permitted to speak, a faculty committee said that "the by-laws of the Board of Regents state that no addresses shall be allowed which urge destruction or modification of the government by violence."

A student-faculty group protested the ban, and a few weeks later brought Phillips to Ann Arbor, where he spoke to an off-campus audience of 300 crowded into a cafeteria, with 1000 people turned away outside.