Unethical Behavior

LAST WEEK President Derek C. Bok said he would begin his own informal investigation into the ethics of Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) funding for professors at Harvard. His announcement came after four separate incidents, in which Harvard professors failed to disclose their use of spy agency funds, sparked a flurry of national media attention and two investigations by the dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences.

The last time Bok looked into Harvard-CIA links was in 1977 when a Senate committee revealed that academics had participated in agency-sponsored clandestine activities. Bok told Senators then that the problem of campus CIA activity should be dealt with by universities, which he planned to do. The result was a document which asks all professors to report CIA involvement to their dean of faculty who should then report to the president.

But these guidelines do not have the power of rules, Bok said. In fact, they have never been enforced. Furthermore, the 1977 document responds to a different set of problems with academics and the CIA than the ones which exist today. These problems, which came to light in the fall and again this winter, concern the non-disclosure of CIA funding and the relationship of a professor's personal work with the university.

While Bok is correct to acknowledge that it is difficult to control the personal activities of professors with rules, the university needs to make a stronger statement about its use of CIA money than just an informal investigation and two whitewash reports by Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences A. Michael Spence.

These reports ignored broader questions about the issue of CIA money by only addressing the issue of whether professors violated university rules by doing private consulting on university time. Harvard needs to quickly and firmly take a stand on the use of CIA money.

It is unethical whether on personal or private time for a professor to agree to not reveal the source of his funding and irresponsible to agree to censorship rights. Bok should issue an open letter which makes that proper academic ethic clear to all Harvard scholars. The 1977 rules fail to meet today's problems. There should be no delay in letting the world know where Harvard stands.