Eli Political Club Opposes Buckley In Close Balloting

The Yale Political Union came very close to endorsing William Buckley's fight against academic freedom Monday night in New Haven.

Buckley spoke to a packed house in debate with James C. Thomson Jr., Chairman of the Yale Daily News. After the speech, the Political Union voted 65-53 to uphold Thomson's defense of academic freedom.

Quoting from the Bible, "Go ye and teach the people of the world in the ways of the Lord," Buckley summarized his views as developed in "God and Man at Yale." "The purpose of a university is something other than the mere communication of ideas. Education itself has to have a purpose. What is important is the direction in which it leads and the values which it affirms."

Thomson stated the differences between his opinions and those of Buckley by saying, "He would like (a university) to teach what he believes. I would like it to teach how to think. He would like it to indoctrinate. I would like it to designate. He would like it to subscribe to a rigid orthodoxy. I would like it to be a meeting ground for a complex of conflicting orthodoxies."

Buckley picked out a statement by Yale's president emeritus, Charles Seymour, "We shall seek the truth and embrace the consequences," as indicating that truth must be discoverable. He argued that discovery is of greater value than the research involved.

The present News Chairman defined a university as "a place where nothing is static, where that noblest of all intoxicating processes, intellectual ferment, takes place constantly. It is a place where men are taught how to think, to judge, and to be free--to be free to judge and think as they see fit."

Buckley was O.C.D. chairman during 1949-50. As chairman, he wrote all of the paper's important editorials and determined policy by himself.