FAS Won’t Align Science Research Rules to Fed. Law

The Faculty of Arts and Sciences (FAS) has no plans to bring its nondiscrimination policies on classified biological research in line with federal legislation passed after Sept. 11, FAS officials said Friday.

The issue of compliance with the 2001 USA PATRIOT Act had been raised at last Tuesday’s meeting of the Faculty Council, a committee of professors that sets the agenda for the meetings of the entire Faculty.

The council also bemoaned the law’s limitation on foreign travel and its provisions that can force the University to turn over the library and e-mail records of foreign scholars.

Elaine Scarry, Cabot professor of aesthetics and the general theory of value, raised concerns at last month’s Faculty meeting that this law violates civil liberties.

But at the council’s Tuesday meeting, Deputy Counsel Robert W. Iuliano and FAS Dean for Research and Information Technology Paul C. Martin emphasized the threat the act poses to scientific research being done in FAS.

According to Martin, one of the most significant concerns is that the law permits the government to prevent researchers from certain countries from working with classified substances, while FAS policy forbids limiting research on the basis of nationality.

“There is a straightforward conflict between FAS policy and the PATRIOT Act,” he said.

Under the PATRIOT Act, the government could only interfere in this way if FAS scientists were working with more than a certain amount of a chemical or biological agent on a federal classified list.

Though there is currently no work being done in FAS that would fit this category—substances on the list being used are in doses below the acceptable limits—FAS officials are concerned that this might not always be case. And Martin, who has been closely watching federal policy since last year, said the restrictions could be tightened further.

“All fear that there could be more restrictions,” he said. “There is no reason to think that there will not be additional rules that aren’t objectionable.”

Martin said the list of classified substances has been around since 1996, but before Sept. 11 the government only had limited oversight over such material. If the agents weren’t being transported, they were not subject to federal regulation.

But he said the PATRIOT Act now requires that any work done with these substances be registered and hence subject to government laws limiting its access.

According to Martin, FAS will not change its nondiscrimination policy regardless of what Harvard’s graduate schools decide to do.

“Our view is that we have policies which we believe are proper policies. We have discussed it...and we see no reason to change,” he said.

In addition to its objections to the PATRIOT Act’s restrictions on foreign researchers, FAS is also concerned by the extent of the act’s security requirements.

Having to register classified work would not only limit who has access to it, but subject the labs to obtrusive security measures such as stationing armed guards at the doors.

“The degree of physical security [required] is not paralleled” by anything in the past, Martin said.

According to Martin, such heightened security would greatly disrupt current research procedures, making it necessary to consult everyone in a lab before one specific project was approved.

Professor of the History of Science Everett I. Mendelsohn called the federal policy on biological agents “right on the edge” of limiting civil liberties.

But he said that other provisions of the PATRIOT Act—such as the FBI being able to subpoena individuals’ personal records—were more blatant violations.

“There is definitely a ratcheting up of the interests of the government,” he said.

Mendelsohn said Harvard professors will not likely sit on the sidelines and watch.

He said he reminded his fellow Faculty Council members last week that there is a long precedent of Harvard taking on the federal government. During the Cold War, University officials effectively lobbied to eliminate their responsibility to collect loyalty oaths from their students.

Martin said several Harvard officials have already expressed their concerns to federal officials at conferences, such as the National Academy of Scientists’ conference on confidentiality in biological defense held this past weekend.

The entire Faculty will have an opportunity to comment on this issue at the next Faculty meeting on Feb. 11.

Until then, Mendelsohn said concerns will likely continue to mount.

“When you piece all this together, there is a pattern of significantly moving towards restricting civil liberties,” he said. “They are crossing what had been a line of principle—the principle of democracy.”

—Staff writer Jessica E. Vascellaro can be reached at vascell@fas.harvard.edu.