American Academy of Political and Social Science, Sage Publications, Inc. The Annals of The American Academy of Political and Social Science

American Academy of Political and Social Science
The U. S. Military and Higher Education: A Brief History

Author(s): Richard M. Abrams
Source: The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, Vol. 502,
Universities and the Military (Mar., 1989), pp. 15-28
Published by: Sage Publications, Inc. in association with the American Academy of
Political and Social Science
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1046973
Accessed: 18-09-2016 01:50 UTC
JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted
digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about
JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.
Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at
http://about.jstor.org/terms
American Academy of Political and Social Science, Sage Publications, Inc. are collaborating
with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to The Annals of the American Academy of
Political and Social Science
This content downloaded from 132.174.255.3 on Sun, 18 Sep 2016 01:50:48 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
ANNALS, AAPSS, 502, March 1989
The U.S. Military and

Higher Education:
A Brief History
By RICHARD M. ABRAMS
ABSTRACT: From almost unnoticed beginnings in the Morrill Land-Grant

College Act of 1862, the military-university relationship has, since 1940,
become a major feature of American society. Putting higher education to the
service of public priorities has longer and stronger roots in the American
tradition than does the ideal of the university as a sanctuary for independent,
critical scholarship and disinterested pursuit of learning for its own sake.
Ironically, the university gained its principal claim to eminence in the
American mainstream only in the early twentieth century when much of the
nation's elite came to respect the ideal of autonomous, disinterested research
and teaching within an academic sanctuary. Although the ideal continued to
be honored as worthy, its approximation to reality faded egregiously after
1940. Its very importance for the achievement of public priorities, most
conspicuously for national defense, led the university to accept inducements
and constraints that pulled it notably away from its briefly assumed mission
as a protected refuge for the dispassionate and critical study of science and
society.
Richard M. Abrams is professor of history at Berkeley. He is the author of The Issue of

Federal Regulation in the Progressive Era (1963); Conservatism in a Progressive Era (1964);
The Burdens of Progress (1978); and articles in journals including The American Historical
Review; Business History Review; The American Bar Foundation Research Journal; Stanford
Law Review; and the Political Science Quarterly. He is currently engaged in research on the
militarization of American society since 1949. He acknowledges the helpful suggestions of John
Heilbron, David A. Wilson, and Daniel Kevles, and the Institutes of International Studies and
Governmental Studies at Berkeley for supporting grants.
15
16 THE ANNALS OF THE AMERICAN ACADEMY
HE American military's relationship That was sixty years before the Repub-
with universities and colleges began
lican Party came to identify itself with
in almost an absence of mind. It arose minimal-state ideology. It was the Demo-
from an afterthought stipulation in the crats who then stood for limited govern-
Morrill Land-Grant College Act of 1862ment, generally opposing such uses of
that institutions to be financed under the national resources as the Morrill Act
terms of the act through income from the authorized. President James Buchanan,
sale of federal lands must offer military in fact, had vetoed a land-grant college
training as part of the curriculum. For bill, which had no military training clause
three-quarters of a century, little of note in it, in 1857. But the more activist
developed from this beginning, but fol- Republicans had come to national power
lowing World War II, the university- in 1861 pretty much determined to use
military collaboration became a vital government to stimulate business enter-
feature of American society. Amid the prise, both agricultural and industrial.
unending tensions of the postwar era, They turned easily to making public
Americans' call for their universities to universities serve this purpose, as part of
service national policy priorities-espe-a broader agenda. In addition to speeding
cially some that required or made use of the land-grant college measure through
secrecy and deception-would put at risk the post-secession rump Congress, they
higher education's own priorities for pro-enacted a protectionist tariff bill that also
moting honest and independent scholar- bore the name of the congressman from
ship and teaching. Vermont, a national banking bill, and a
The main purpose of the Land-Grant farmers' homestead bill to encourage
Act was to promote "agriculture and the rapid settlement of the remaining conti-
mechanical arts," but because the Civilnental territories.
War was already eight months in prog- Although specific public service was
ress, Congressman Justin Morrill of Ver- something of a novel assignment for
mont was able to persuade his colleagues American colleges at the time, two impor-
to insert into the measure the brief clause tant American traditions underlay the
"and including military tactics." "Militarymilitary training provision. The first was
instruction," Morrill commented, allud- Americans' strong commitment to the
ing to the North's lack of able officers at citizen-soldier, aimed at minimizing the
the start of the war, "has been incorpo- need for a standing army. Morrill was
rated [in the act]... upon the attention ofparticularly concerned to avert the even-
the loyal states [to] the history of the past tuality that the nation's growing military
year." As the young congressman saw it, needs might lead to a large professional
moreover, a continuing source of ample military establishment, hence his prefer-
military skills among the citizenry would ence for giving young men soldiering
surely be needed as the country grew, "to experience in civilian-run colleges. The
secure that wholesome respect which second was the nation's legendary prag-
belongs to a people whose power is matism that judged the university as it did
always equal to its pretensions."' every institution, by its utility in the
achievement of prevailing social purposes.
1. Quoted in James E. Pollard, Military Train-
When, eighty years after the Morrill Act,
ing in the Land-Grant Colleges and Universities
modern science would revolutionize mili-
(Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 1964),
pp. 57-58. tary technology and, accordingly, mili-
U.S. MILITARY AND HIGHER EDUCATION 17
recognition
tary strategy and its relevance for Amer- as scientists with a detached
ican foreign relations, the seconddevotion to truth, aloof from the pas-
tradition
in particular would tend to sionate
commit preconceptions of everyday life.
Asservice
American higher education to the the nineteenth century came to its
inglorious end, the perceived failures of
of the state in unprecedented measures.
How seriously that commitment both the democratic process and the
has come
to compromise the mission of economic
the uni-marketplace suggested that both
versity as a center for dispassionate government
and and business required a re-
condite
critical study of science and society re- expertise that lay beyond the
mains a troubling question. ready reach of practical experience. The
The question is especially troublinguniversity beckoned. Acting on their new
because there is no solid tradition in strength, faculty organized and profes-
sionalized, raising the German ideal of
America of the university as a sanctuary
for dispassionate and critical study of
learning for its own sake as its model and
science and society. The commonly lofted
treating it as a tradition. The founding of
ideal of academia, as a refuge where the
the American Association of University
Professors in 1915 drew attention to
scholar's social responsibility consists
principally in his or her independent
college faculty as a distinctive profes-
choices of critical research and learnedsional identity at the heart of the univer-
conclusions, dates in America primarily sity, successfully linking the principles of
tenure and academic freedom with the
from a brief period in the early twentieth
century. Reality and the ideal probablyessence of scholarly integrity while
converged most closely only during the countering the peculiar American practice
of treating college faculty as mere
twenty years between the world wars,
when the value of academic freedom was employees.
first forcefully articulated and came to Crucial support came from the busi-
prevail among important segments of the ness community. It had become well
nation's elite. Whatever detached inde- understood that modern business re-
pendence American academics may havequired attention to fast-growing develop-
enjoyed in the eighteenth and nineteenth
ments not only in science and technology
centuries arose mainly from the limitedbut in business management. In the nine-
perceptions of their usefulness, whichteenth century it was commonplace for
confined them mainly to producing cul-businessmen to regard a college education
tured gentlemen, ladies, and clergymenas having small or even negative value for
who would perpetuate prevailing man- their male heirs. By the Progressive Era,
ners and standards of excellence. The courtesy of the corporation revolution
evidence suggests that the universitiesand
in the ascendancy of consumer-goods
the post-Morrill era rather welcomed industries,
the business professionalism had
become
addition to such seemingly slight tasks of fashionable, and college-level
a responsibility to contribute to the na-
business schools offered the appropriate
credentials. An elite sector of the business
tion's economic growth and military
preparedness. community therefore grew receptive to
Later, when higher education first the efforts of college faculties to define for
gained eminence in America as a vital themselves a unique place in society,
independent of church, state, and eco-
social asset, that achievement owed speci-
fically to the way academic faculty won
nomic pressures, sheltered from the winds
of power and fashion, free to probe thesmall beginnings of the Morrill Act,2 the
limits of knowledge. It was prepared touniversity-military relationship would
accept that scholarly inquiry most effi-
grow into a major phenomenon.
ciently served society when unfettered by
mandates to service particular public SMALL AND
priorities. It paralleled the prevailing busi- HALTING BEGINNINGS
ness view that the business corporation,

For the first half century after the
conceived by the state originally for stipu-
Morrill Act, the military-training obliga-
lated public purposes, most efficiently
tion appears to have had little impact.
served society when free to maximizeThe act left it to the states to determine
profits.
how it was to be imposed. Most land-
The military's ascension in American
grant states made it compulsory for able-
life is still more recent. Unlike the uni-
bodied men in their first two college
versity, the military made its move only
years, although War Department neglect
upon the perception that specific public
led some to give it up for many years.
priorities demanded its augmented ser- Curricula included course work on tac-
vices. That did not come until World War
tics, but most of the training in the
II and the perpetual preparation for war
nineteenth century seems to have amount-
thereafter. Actually, what the scholars,
ed to a few hours of drill each week. The
engineers, and scientists had wrought in
act, in any event, did not appear to aim at
the way of weaponry had even greater
producing officers but only at the pre-
impact than did merely the war and the
sumed benefits of exposing young men to
threat of war. The advent of jet propul-
the experience of issuing commands and
sion and nuclear power had at least as
practicing obedience. As one Army
much to do with America's assumption
spokesman put it, there was a general
of hegemonic responsibilities in Western
"hope that possibly a body of educated
Europe and the Pacific after the war as
men having some knowledge of the ele-
did deliberate policy choices impelled by
ments of military science may be available
liberal internationalist premises. Modern
in time of war to furnish the subaltern
military technology revolutionized war-
officers of a volunteer army."3
fare, put long-term strategic considera-
The country's entry into imperial com-
tions at the center of diplomacy, and
petition at the turn of the century focused
transformed military personnel from
attention on various proposals for orga-
servants of policy into indispensable ex-
nizing a substantial reserve and restruc-
perts in the shaping of policy.
turing the relationship between the regular
In this transformation, military person-
army and the state militias. A General
nel and the civilian officers of govern-
Staff report in 1915 strongly favored
ment would become senior partners with
university scholars. Within less than a 2. Most histories of education entirely neglect
generation after American higher educa- the military provision of the Morrill Act. Frederick
tion first established the ideal of the
Rudolph's excellent survey history, The American
College and University (New York: Vintage, 1962),
university as a sanctuary for independent
p. 252, omits, without even an ellipsis mark, the
and disinterested scholarship, urgent pub-
clause "and including military tactics" even when
lic priorities would impose on it com-quoting the key paragraph of the act.
promising utilitarian demands. From the3. Pollard, Land-Grant Colleges, p. 63.
complaisant
building a large reserve officer corps from understanding, now sug-
an expanded military academy gested
system.mean-spirited intent to coerce con-
But the country's powerful tradition
formity. On the other side, the increasingly
against a strong professional military-
pluralist character of the culture inspired
new efforts by self-appointed custodians
and the anticipated expense-foredoomed
of thefor
that hope. The General Staff settled fading conventions to reimpose the
fading conventions on everyone. The
its second choice, a provision incorpo-
rated in the National Defense Act of 1916 war-revived military establishment count-
for a Reserve Officers' Training Corps ed itself among the custodians and thereby
(ROTC) in civilian colleges and universi- confronted the strong insurgent attitudes
ties, beginning with the land-grant col- in the universities.
leges and the several military institutions Unhappily for the military, the Age of
like Norwich, the Citadel, and the Virginia Normalcy lacked noteworthy enthusiasm
Military Institute. Military drill would for public causes of any kind, whether of
yield to military education as Congress the variety that inspired red raids or
gave the colleges the charge of preparing alcoholic abstinence, corporation controls
a large aggregate of reserve officers. or militant Americanism. The Army had
American entry into the World War, hoped to gain a long-denied legitimacy
however, stifled the program before it and access to the mainstream of American
began to draw breath. life by exploiting its momentary popu-
The National Defense Act of 1920 put larity as victor in the Great War, and as a
the program on more permanent footing, model for true Americanism in that era of
but by this time the legitimacy of requiring patriotic ambivalence. Authorization by
universities to service specific public prior- the Defense Act of 1920 to establish
ities had come into question. The war had ROTC units in any college or high school,
exposed raw fissures in what had been and to run youth camps as well, had
presumed to be an American consensus promised a measure of that access. But
on public priorities and social values. the business of Americans was business,
Excepting, most notably, the administra- the military as yet had little to offer to
tors of the land-grant colleges, educators business, and business did not want to
now were arguing that it was specifically pay for expensive military training units
the role of the university to stand apart in or out of the colleges. It did not help
from the society's principal institutions so matters when military spokesmen, grossly
that it might most freely explore and miscalculating the public temper, told
reveal all ethical and policy options. Congress how ROTC instructors would
Wartime experience with repression of "bring to bear at numerous points of
dissent and the Red Scare excesses during contact, the ethical influence of Army
and after the war kindled a powerful traditions and ideals"4 and proceeded to
movement to establish academic freedom denounce as "bolshevists" the numerous
as the keystone of university life. Argu- college faculty members who questioned
ments about how military training could
contribute to character building, widely
4. Quoted in Eugene M. Lyons and John W.
persuasive among educators in the nine- Masland, Education and Military Leadership: A
teenth century when words like "char- Study of the R.O.T.C. (Princeton, NJ: Princeton
acter" and "good citizenship" met with University Press, 1959), p. 45.
the appropriateness of military training

making positive contributions to the mili-
on campuses. tary effort. President Roosevelt's execu-
Nor did the War Department help by
tive order in June 1941 creating the Office
claiming inaccurately that the Morrill
of Scientific Research and Development
Act required compulsory training for endorsed,
all essentially for the first time, the
able-bodied males in participating insti-
view that the proper functions of govern-
ment included support of basic research
tutions. Wisconsin reacted to this aggres-
siveness by rescinding the requirement by
in university scientists. Although that
1923. Two other states followed a few
office's mandate, of course, focused on
years later. The Interior Department,
national security priorities, its acknowl-
which ran the Office of Education in edgment of the importance of pure science
lent assurance to academic researchers
those days, declared that merely offering
military training satisfied the law, andthat
in their work need not be confined
1930 the Justice Department endorsed specifically to military objectives.
Interior's position. Not willing to yield From the onset of the war, the univer-
sities' science and engineering facilities
altogether to so-called pacifists and other
designated radicals, most state govern- took on much of the research that pro-
ments maintained compulsory military duced missile technology, gun sights,
training in the land-grant colleges, andbomb sights, radar, the proximity fuze,
most organized educational associations and, of course, the atom bomb. More
continued to champion ROTC, annually than 25 universities secretly took con-
extolling the virtues of the program as tracts
a to develop chemical and biological
preferred alternative to universal military
weapons.5 The degree to which university
training in service of the citizen-soldier
facilities were used for military research
tradition, while complaining annually
and development set the United States
that the War Department gave them apart from other industrial nations, where
scant support. In 1934, the U.S. Suprememost such work was done in government
Court in Hamilton v. California upheld or private installations.6 It also departed
the constitutionality of compulsory sharply from the American practice dur-
ROTC, setting the stage for numerous ing World War I, when no one appeared
anti-ROTC campus protests, harbingers to know how to direct government funds
of the 1960s, that continued until into the the private or academic sector, and,
program was suspended by the Armyinstead,in individual civilian scientists and
1940. That was when Congress authorized engineers were given military commis-
the draft and the establishment of Officers'
sions and absorbed into the services.7
Candidacy Schools for regular-army en- Since the initiative for most of the new
listed men. By then, a more serious
weapons during World War II came in
collaboration of the universities with the
5. See, for example, Barton J. Bernstein, "The
military establishment was about to begin.
Birth of the U.S. Biological-Warfare Program,"
World War II was a popular war, Scientific American, June 1987, pp. 116-21.
perhaps especially in the academic com- 6. Cf. Charles V. Kidd, American Universities
munity, where liberal internationalist and Federal Research (Cambridge, MA: Harvard
impulses had been strongest for entry University Press, Belknap Press, 1959), p. 26.
7. A. Hunter Dupree, Science in the Federal
against the fascist powers. There seemed Government (New York: Harper Torchbook, 1964),
little dissent during this war that the pp. 313-25. Dupree writes, "If science was to take a
proper functions of a university included new place in the conduct of war, it had to do it in the
Cold
fact from university scientists and War assured that government lead-
engi-
neers, it seemed a natural step ers
forwould
the stress higher education's obliga-
government to contract with the tion to service national security needs.
univer-
sities to administer the projects The heavy federal funding needed for
while
providing vastly enlarged facilities modern scientific research more or less
on,
near, or sometimes at a considerable guaranteed that university faculty would
distance from campus. be receptive.
All the same, after the war, when the
DEFINING THE
consensus on foreign policy eroded and
APPROPRIATE RELATIONSHIP
conscientious anxiety over their role in
thegener-
From the war's beginning, it was nuclear arms race grew within the
science
ally assumed that the close, mutually community, some grumbling arose
supportive relationships betweenamong scholars that their function as
the mili-
educators
tary and the state, the university and the stood to be corrupted by con-
tinuing to accept funding for military
state, and the military and the university
would continue after the war. assignments.
Among While never denying their
other things, the assumption responsibilities
was built to the public interest, as
defined
into the Office of Scientific Research andby public policy, many universi-
ties
Development. As the war neared moved
its end,to protect the academic com-
munity
Edward L. Bowles, science adviser to from inappropriate entanglement
Secretary of War Henry Stimson,withcalled
the state. Just what was inappro-
priate was never completely established,
for "an effective peacetime integration"
but research initiatives funded without
of the military with the resources of
peer
higher education. "Not only is reviewa offered one criterion. Secrecy
there
provided
great opportunity to underwrite another. In 1946, Harvard presi-
research
for its direct contribution to the nation's dent James Conant, himself an impor-
welfare," he wrote, ". . . but the oppor- tant science adviser to the government
tunity exists to encourage the training of during the war, promulgated rules against
brilliant minds and to instill in them auniversity sponsorship of classified or
consciousness of their responsibility tosecret research. That policy caught on
elsewhere. But other universities-notably
the nation's security."8 The onset of the
the Massachusetts Institute of Technol-
field of weapons research, and the armed services
ogy (MIT), just down the road from
were jealous guardians of their own preserves."
Ibid., p. 313. World War I did inspire the foundingHarvard-for many years continued to
permit classified research and even classi-
of the National Research Council, which brought
together government and military officers, business
fied doctoral theses. MIT president James
executives, and scientists from private and academic
R. Killian, Jr., expressed great discomfort
institutions. But although its director, physicist
Robert A. Millikan of the University of Chicago,
over such work but argued that the
sometimes recruited university personnel for par-urgencies created by the Cold War made
ticular projects-for example, sonar-with no im- it necessary. "We have recognized," he
said in 1953, "an inescapable responsi-
portant exceptions universities themselves neither
took on war contracts nor administered military bility in this time of crisis to undertake
research undertaken by individual faculty members.
research in support of our national secur-
8. Quoted in Clayton R. Koppes, JPL and the
American Space Program: A History of the Jet ity which under normal conditions we
Propulsion Laboratory (New Haven, CT: Yalewould choose not to undertake.... When
University Press, 1982), p. 26. these conditions no longer hold, we shall
withdraw from classified emergencydedication

re- to the honest pursuit of truth
search with enthusiasm and relief."9 "Nor-
mandates complete openness, the argu-
mal conditions," however, never returned. ment against permitting secret research
Killian, later the first science adviserunder
to university auspices had consider-
the president, under Eisenhower, spoke
able appeal. On the other hand, perceived
national needs and the American prag-
of the 1940s and early 1950s as "a golden
era in government-university coopera-
matic tradition also had power. As one
tion."10 The cooperation required impor-
student of the problem wrote in 1959:
tant compromises. Apart from the secre-
A few universities, among them Harvard,
cy, which was at odds with the character
assess the deleterious effect of secret research
of a model academic environment, some
as being so significant that they refuse to
of the military work took university
accept any classified projects. If this practice
scientists and engineers rather far into
had been followed by all universities during
activities more suitable for industrial the postwar years, either the national security
plants. Cal Tech's Jet Propulsion Labora-
would have been endangered by their failure
to have the research done or competent
tory (JPL), for example, did the basic and
developmental research, then often pro- faculty members would have been taken from
universities to conduct research elsewhere.13
duced the equipment and trained military
personnel to use it. But most peopleOn the whole, a sense of "responsibility
seemed satisfied that the work was usually
to the nation's security," together with the
done at such off-campus facilities. As
fact that modern research required fund-
Killian commented:
ing in a magnitude not to be forthcoming
from educational institutions or even
The academic institutions responded by
inventing novel ways to serve governmentfrom private industry, helped motivate
without distorting their prime functions asmost to continue essentially the wartime
educational institutions. The summer study relationship. As Martin Trow has written,
projects, the special research centers, and the "The generous [federal] funding of scien-
large off-campus interdisciplinary laborato-tific research after World War II played a
ries such as Lincoln, JPL, and the Appliedmajor role in the explosion of knowledge
Physics Laboratory, all managed by univer- in the United States and the rise to
sities, are examples."
preeminence of American scientific disci-
By being willing to take on large military plines in the world community."'4 During
contracts in times of need, Killian re- especially the first two postwar decades,
marked, the universities "made possible the university-military connection under-
the maintenance of a scientific 'fleet in wrote those achievements. The work at
being' of great importance to nationalJPL, at the Berkeley, Livermore, and Los
security."12 Alamos laboratories of the University of
Using the model of the university as a California, and at the Instrumentation
detached community of scholars whoseLaboratories at MIT, among others, had
accustomed engineers and scientists to
9. Quoted in Jack H. Nunn, "MIT: A Univer-
sity's Contributions to National Defense," Military
the new scale of equipment that postwar
Affairs, 43:124 (Oct. 1979). science required. The broad scope given
10. Quoted in Koppes, JPL, pp. x-xi. 13. Kidd, American Universities, pp. 37-38.
11. Ibid.
14. "The Public and Private Lives of Higher
12. Nunn, "MIT," p. 124. Education," Daedalus, 2:113 (Winter 1975).
in Department of Defense (DoD) grants

Advantages to the military were, of
for basic research enabled university re- substantial. First, the war experi-
course,
searchers to minimize the specifically
ence showed that the military needed
military significance of their work. access
Mech- to all the scholars that the country
anisms to guarantee peer review ofhad con-who were at the leading edge of
research and who did their work in an
tract awards added legitimacy to research
unregimented environment where the
broadly chartered by the nation's military-
humanities
oriented agencies. They lent assurance to as well as the social and
physical sciences thrived. Second, aca-
scholars that the federal grants compro-
demic researchers cost less than did those
mised neither the quality of the scientific
work supported nor their independentin private industry, as did most academic
research
choices of inquiry. Projects for which the facilities, while, on the other
government required secrecy came in-civil service constraints that would
hand,
creasingly to be confined to off-campus
have applied to government-run facilities
did not get in the way of personnel
laboratories federally owned and financed
but administered by universities, adding
recruitment. Third, having research and
to the sense that military-oriented re-
development (R&D) done at universities
andin-
search left normal campus functions other nonprofit FFRDCs obviated,
tact. By the 1960s, there were atinleast
theory, potential conflicts of interest
twenty Federally Funded Research andit came to hardware production.
when
Development Center (FFRDC) labora-
Finally, just as the universities feared they
tories sponsored by the DoD, the Atomic
would lose many of their best faculty if
Energy Commission, or the Nationalthey severed connections with military-
Aeronautics and Space Administration
oriented research, so the military feared it
(NASA) and operated by 16 individual
would not enjoy the services of many of
universities and several university the best minds if it chose to confine its
con-
sortia. An additional twenty or so contracts
other and funding to private or gov-
university research centers drewernment
all or facilities.
nearly all their financing from federal
The last probably was most important.
sources, with the DoD, the Atomic
In En-
1953, the DoD stated as its principal
ergy Commission, and NASA accounting
reason for funding university R&D the
for most of it.15 As of 1968, the DoD
need
listed 92 universities among the top 500
prime contractors for research, develop- to maintain effective contact between the
ment, testing, and evaluation. Armed Services and the scientific fraternity of
the country, so that the scientists can be
15. Michael Klare, comp., The University-Mili-
legitimately
tary Complex: A Directory and Related Docu- encouraged to be interested in
ments (New York: North American Congress fieldson
which are of potential importance... to
national defense, so that the entire scientific
Latin America, 1969), pp. 52-54; Dorothy Nelkin,
The University and Military Research: Moral Poli- of the country could be brought to
strength
tics at M.I. T. (Ithaca, NY: Cornell Universitybear
Press,
promptly and effectively in case of a
1972), pp. 28-32; Dean C. Coddington and severe emergency, so that the Services are
J. Gordon Milliken, "Future of Federal Contract
continuously and growingly aware of scientific
Research Centers," Harvard Business Review, Mar.-
developments and of the value to them of
Apr. 1970, pp. 104-5. Depending on how one
scientific activity, and so that the scientists
defines a Federally Funded Research and Develop-
ment Center, the figures could be a bit higher. and the research administrators can contribute
universities the prime recipients of federal

an important element of intellectual leadership
within the Armed Services.'6 support for basic R&D.19 In 1950, Con-
gress established the National Science
Thirty years later, as part of the Reagan
Foundation; in 1958, after Sputnik shook
administration's dramatic military build-
the country, congressional obstruction of
up, DoD used the same rationale in
federal aid to higher education softened,
promoting its University Research Initia-
leading to passage of the National Defense
tive. That program included the funding
Education Act to underwrite foreign lan-
of new equipment at universities and the
guage study as well as engineering and the
funding of sabbaticals for faculty to work
in defense labs and later to continue the
sciences; in 1965, creation of the National
Endowments for the Arts and for the
research back in their university facilities.17
Humanities moved federal aid further
from the military center, as did the
SHIFTS IN FUNDING
Education Amendment Act of 1972. To
date, the afederal government remains the
Although the 1980s has witnessed
largest
tightening of the military-university single funding source for academic
rela-
R&D. On the average, it has supplied
tionship, on the whole military-related
two-thirds
funding has declined as a proportion of of all academic R&D funding
since 1960,
all federal funding of higher education. Inpeaking in 1965 at 73 percent,
the first postwar decade, about 86with lows of 63 percent in 1960 and 64
percent
of all federally funded R&D, and percent in 1985. The universities' share of
more
than 90 percent of federal R&D all federal outlays for basic and applied
support
R&D about doubled in the two decades
for the physical sciences in the universities,
came from DoD and the Atomic after
Energy1960, rising from 16 to 31 percent,
while
Commission.18 The high figures, of the share of all federal funding
course,
granted
reflected Congress's unwillingness to FFRDCs declined slightly.20
at the
time to provide federal aid toAt the same time, DoD's share of all
higher
federal funds for basic research at univer-
education except for defense purposes.
Eventually, other federal fundingsities dropped from about 25 percent in
agencies
1960 to a low of 8 percent in 1976 and
would greatly reduce DoD's proportion-
ate role in the universities, whileabout 12 percent in 1985, while the
making
National Institutes of Health's share has
16. U.S. National Science Foundation, Govern-
ranged from 33.4 percent in 1967 to
ment-University Relationships in Federally Spon-
almost half by 1985.21
sored Scientific Research and Development (Wash-
ington, DC: Government Printing Office, Apr.
1958), p. 10. 19. U.S. National Science Foundation, Science
17. See, for example, "Pentagon Seeks to Build and Technology: Annual Report to the Congress
Bridges to Academe," Science, 19 Apr. 1985, p. 303; (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office,
"Star Wars Grants Attract Universities," ibid., June 1980), esp. pp. 22, 24.
p. 304; "Enhancing Basic Research," Aviation 20. National Science Foundation, Science and
Week & Space Technology, 6 May 1985, p. 11; Technology: Annual Report to the Congress (Wash-
"DOD Program Proves Attractive," Science, 4 ington, DC: Government Printing Office, Aug.
June 1985, p. 129. 1978), pp. 46-47.
18. U.S. National Science Foundation, Federal 21. Calculated from U.S. National Science
Funds for Research and Development for FY1978, Foundation, Science Indicators: The 1985 Report
1979, and 1980 (Washington, DC: Government (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office,
Printing Office, 1979), p. 6. 1985), app. tabs. 2-5, 5-20.
"the
Americans' increased willingness tonature of the nation's security task
use federal resources to underwrite re- especially their politico-military dimen-
search in all fields, especially in the sion; . . . applying science and techno
biological and behavioral sciences, helps logical knowledge to military matters;..
to explain the shift. Since the early 1960s, [and] advising foreign military establish-
the National Institutes of Health has been ments."22 That gave academia additional
the largest single sponsor of R&D at the tasks. In 1950, General Dwight Eisen
universities; the National Science Foun- hower wrote in a memorandum for De-
dation has been second. Yet it must be fense Secretary James Forrestal that
understood that the kind of research "under present conditions," all regular
done under the auspices of the National officers had to have "a background of
Science Foundation and the National general knowledge similar to that pos-
Institutes of Health does not always sessed by the graduates of our leading
universities."23 For this reason and others,
differ substantially from that done under
DoD sponsorship. The charge of the theservices turned increasingly to ROTC
and
three federal agencies, as with that ofto postgraduate education for its
NASA and the Department of Energy, officers
is at the civilian universities, rather
the same: to promote work of potential than to the military academies and post-
graduate institutions like the National
benefit to the national security, a concept
that has come to include leadershipWar notCollege. Obversely, since the 1940s,
DoD has sponsored summer studies pro-
merely in weaponry but also in industrial
innovation. By the 1980s, the State grams designed to bring academic schol-
Department was as likely as DoDarstotogether with the military at home
and abroad, both to acquaint military
insist on restricting accessibility of univer-
sity research on grounds that releaseofficers
of with advanced thinking in orga-
nization and technology and to instruct
new technology information could jeop-
the academicians about military needs.
ardize the nation's economic strength,
Since 1950, DoD-along with private
thereby undermining national security.
foundations such as Rockefeller and
THE DIMMING Ford-has also underwritten dozens of
OF DISTINCTIONS
national security studies programs at the
universities,
The physical and natural sciences have as well as at think tanks
closely
by no means been the only areas of DoD tied to the individual services and
DoD. the
funding at the universities. Given These think tanks include, for
example, Rand, which has ties with the
nature of modern military technology,
Air Force;
the distinction between what belongs to the Research Analysis Corpo-
ration,
the military and what to the civilian which has a close relationship to
the Army;
sector has dimmed. Since World War II, the Operations Evaluation
civilians and military officers of necessity
22. Amos A. Jordan and William J. Taylor, Jr.,
have continually crossed over the "The
lines in
Military Man in Academia," The Annals of
both management and policymaking re-the American Academy of Political and Social
Science, 406:130 (Mar. 1973).
sponsibilities. It came to be assumed that
23. Quoted in John W. Masland and Laurence
in addition to the traditional mastery of
I. Radway, Soldiers and Scholars: Military Educa-
combat skills, the new professional mili-
tion and National Policy (Princeton, NJ: Princeton
tary officer would participate in defining
University Press, 1957), p. 28.
Group, associated with the Navy; andpus,

the severed connections with some of
their FFRDC divisions, such as MIT's
Institute for Defense Analyses, associated
with the DoD.24 Instrumentation Lab and the Stanford
During the 1960s, when consensus on Research Institute. Unanswered criticism
foreign policy collapsed, critics of the of inadequate oversight by the universities
American military role in Vietnam fo- of the FFRDCs they managed, including
cused intensely on challenging the univer- failure to enforce principles of academic
sity-military connection. DoD sponsor- freedom and intellectual honesty, left
ship of university R&D and the presence them vulnerable.
of ROTC units on campus took the brunt None of this, however, seriously im-
of the criticism. As criticism evolved into peded the momentum of growing state
violence in the years 1967-70, fires and uses of the university for public purposes.
explosions damaged or destroyed some While the state employed the university
200 ROTC buildings on campuses across to produce basic and applied research,
the nation.25 Bowing to what administra- technology, political analysis, security
tors took to be the prevailing views of studies, and other services on behalf of
faculty and students, several universities- national defense priorities, it also made
for example, Stanford and Harvard- use of the university to help solve the
ended their officer-training programs, nation's racial and ethnic problems. The
more than eighty made them voluntary, university thereby became a target for
and for a number of years enrollment attack from sources across the political
dropped more than 50 percent.26 Other spectrum.
campuses, such as the University of Cali- Those on the left condemned the ser-
fornia, Berkeley, rescinded course credit vices provided for national security as
for ROTC curricula, although Berkeley a skewing research and teaching away from
few years later restored credit under new the scholarly objectivity that defined aca-
arrangements whereby DoD agreed to demic integrity. Those on the right noted
permit military teaching appointments how federal affirmative action hiring and
and course syllabi to undergo regular admission requirements designed to re-
faculty scrutiny. A few universities, also dress historic patterns of racial oppres-
bowing to antimilitary pressure on cam- sion undermined standards of excellence
that also defined academic integrity. At-
24. See Gene M. Lyons and Louis Morton,
tacking at the center were those who
Schoolsfor Strategy: Education and Research in
argued that scholars can never remain
National Security Affairs (New York: Praeger,
1965); Masland and Radway, Soldiers and Scholars; detached from social priorities, thereby
Lyons and Masland, Education and Military directly challenging the very ideal of the
Leadership.
university as a sanctuary for independent
25. Kirkpatrick Sale, SDS(New York: Vintage,
inquiry. On one side, the head of NASA
1973), pp. 406, 427, 503, 632, 724.
26. Sale says 30 units were dropped between during the 1960s, James Webb, insisted
1966 and 1970. Ibid., p. 9. Between 1966 and 1972, that the universities had an obligation to
despite the ROTC Vitalization Act of 1964, which support the state and the capitalist system,
enabled the Army and Air Force to match the
and he sought to make grants to faculty
Navy's already attractive program of full-tuition
contingent on "an increased awareness...
scholarships, enrollment in the Army ROTC
dropped from about 177,000 to about 50,000. of their societal responsibilities in the
Jordan and Taylor, "Military Man in Academia," attainment of national goals."27 A critic
p. 135. 27. Quoted in Koppes, JPL, p. 144.
on the other side, urging scientistsbelieved

to take that disengagement from tie
with DoD would serve only to reduc
a "moral" stand against nuclear weapons
research on campus, insisted in 1964, input into defense strategie
academic
(2)hope
"The science expert... has no real those who saw disengagement as
of keeping out of politics."28 Theimpoverishing
obser- scientific research at un
vation may well fall in the category of (3) those who saw clear threat
versities,
self-fulfilling admonitions. to academic freedom, and (4) those with
Demands that scholars make contrary
judg- political judgments about th
ments about the social and moral value
implica-
of military power for deterring war
tions of their work, whether conforming
Many of the latter saw no great reason
or contrasting with prevailing not to volunteer their talents for classifie
national
research, covert intelligence work, o
goals, carried with them hints of limiting
inquiry to acceptable subjects and,
even,per-
according to the U.S. Senate Churc
haps, acceptable conclusions. To pick
Committee findings in 1976, disinforma
tion activities that entailed deliberate
and choose among government-funded
projects on the basis of what wasfabrication
or was of reports for particular pub-
not compatible with conscience or social- effects.
lic-opinion
policy preferences implied the divisionAmidof the student and faculty protests
in the
scholarship along political lines. And late 1960s that led a number of
yet,
beginning especially in the 1960s,universities
many to sever their connections
with FFRDCs,
scholars found themselves impelled to the Air Force & Space
make just such choices. Those whose
Digest commented: "If the universities
political judgment led them to turn their backs on the real world of
believe
that enhancement of military capabilities
international conflict, unpleasant as that
encourages militarization of policyworld
pressed
is, they will lose a major portion of
for dissociation of the universitythe relevance they are so consciously
from
so-called war work. At the risk of seeking
imping-these days."30 That was a fair-
ing on academic freedom, they weretouch. But "relevance" may prove
enough
prepared to place scholarship under the
to be the bane of academic integrity. One
of the
test of severe public scrutiny and ironic outcomes of the Vietnam-era
con-
agitation
straint. For example, on the strength of was the so-called Mansfield
the antiwar agitation that stirred cam- to the DoD authorization
Amendment
puses everywhere in the late 1960s, bill
faculty
for fiscal year 1970, which precluded
DoDup
and student activists led MIT to set funding
a of any research project
screening committee for all externally
unless it had "a direct and apparent
funded proposals, making one criterion
relationship to a specific military func-
for approval the degree to whichtion."
a pro-Although intended to reduce DoD's
posal enjoyed "favorable attitudes"role
within
in the shaping of basic research, it is
the campus community.29 Such critics,
hard toofimagine a more effective way of
course, met resistance from (1) those who that DoD's enormous financial
assuring
resources would increasingly skew re-
28. Warer Schilling, quoted in Nelkin,search
Univer-
toward defense priorities. Although
sity and Military Research, p. 10.
Congress later modified the Mansfield
29. Ibid., p. 91. See also Center for Strategic
and International Studies, U.S. Militaryconstraint
R&D to permit funding of research
Management, special report no. 14 (Washington,
30. Nelkin, University and Military Research,
DC: Georgetown University, 1973), pp. 49 ff.
p. 84.
that had a "potential relationship toresearch

a to public policy. In pursuit
federal funds after the hard times of t
military function," throughout the 1970s
and early 1980s not only did DoD guide-
1970s, universities throughout the countr
began actively to lobby Congress fo
lines for grant applications insist on "the
relevance of the proposed research to theresearch contracts even when there was
DoD mission," but the department also strong likelihood that DoD would enforce
encouraged "preproposals" so that uni- secrecy and constricted access of scholars
versity researchers could modify projectsto the research and the findings.33
when their initial ideas did not precisely Altogether, it may be said that aca-
meet DoD interests.31 Worse, DoD ex- demic engagement with the defense estab-
lishment seriously compromised the
plicitly rejected peer review of research
proposals, substituting merit review, critical independence of the university. In
doing so, it may have undermined the
which, to curry favor with a broader
university's most valuable quality-the
congressional constituency, included such
criteria as a balanced geographic and capability of offering society disinterested
institutional distribution of awards. criticism of prevailing outlooks and insti-
tutions-indeed, the very quality of the
CONCLUSION academic profession that first raised it to
eminence in American life. On the other
In the postwar crisis that hashand,
neverthe American habit of pressing the
ended, the model of the university as an into service on behalf of public
university
island of disinterested scholarship
policyhas
priorities likely assured that out-
taken a beating. The university's come
increas-
anyway. The responsiveness of
ing commitment to public service since and social science researchers
biogenetic
World War II not only has impelledto popular views on sensitive social issues,
scholars to perform tasks in secret,
suchbut,
as race, gender relations, sexual
more important, has tended to bind them
preferences, and ethnicity, has shown
to uncritical postures on matters that
similar tendentiousness. Knowledge is
they are known to be experts in, postures
power; it would be surprising if the purse-
that in the normal course of academic life
holding public showed disinterest in the
would border on intellectual dishonesty.
political implications of social and scien-
Recent reports, essentially uncontradict-
tific research. That scientific inquiry and
ed, that eminent scientists at the intellectual
Univer- talent should follow the leads
sity of California's Lawrence Livermore
of money and politics is in any case
Laboratories knowingly exaggerated the
hardly new, either in twentieth-century
feasibility of President Reagan's Strategic
America or elsewhere and at other times
Defense Initiative32 exemplify theindanger
history. All the same, nothing has had
to academic integrity of the snugthe ties of force of the defense establish-
overall
ment in redirecting basic and applied
31. U.S. Department of Defense, Report on the
research, in putting limits on the free
Merit Review Processfor Competitive Selection of
University Research Projects, Apr. 1987. exchange of intelligence, in dampening
32. See Deborah Blum, "UC, 'Star Wars' discussion
Data of the merits of research that
Hit as Summit Nears," Bee (Sacramento,
hasCA), 4 implications, or in converting
policy
Dec. 1987; idem, "'Star Wars' Lab Consigns
scientists into policy advocates and schol-
Whistle-Blower to Limbo,"ibid., 6 Dec. 1987; idem,
ars into entrepreneurs.
"X-ray Laser Unproven, Says H-bomb Creator,"
ibid., 10 Dec. 1987; "Briefing," Chronicle
33. (San
"Pork Barrel Science: No End in Sight,"
Francisco), 13 Apr. 88. Science, 3 Apr. 1987, pp. 16-17.

American Academy of Political and Social Science, Sage Publications, Inc. The Annals of The American Academy of Political and Social Science

Uploaded by

Document Information

Original Title

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

American Academy of Political and Social Science, Sage Publications, Inc. The Annals of The American Academy of Political and Social Science

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

American Academy of Political and Social Science

The U. S. Military and Higher Education: A Brief History

The U.S. Military and

ABSTRACT: From almost unnoticed beginnings in the Morrill Land-Grant

Richard M. Abrams is professor of history at Berkeley. He is the author of The Issue of

priorities. It paralleled the prevailing busi- HALTING BEGINNINGS

ness view that the business corporation,

the appropriateness of military training

withdraw from classified emergencydedication

in Department of Defense (DoD) grants

universities the prime recipients of federal

Group, associated with the Navy; andpus,

on the other side, urging scientistsbelieved

that had a "potential relationship toresearch

You might also like