| AAU PUBLIC AFFAIRS
REPORT
October 1, 2001
Issues Update: Where things stand (I): The events of September 11 have fundamentally altered the context for discussion of federal spending issues--not only for this fall but for the foreseeable future. The notion of protecting the Social Security surplus has been abandoned and both parties now seem prepared to spend whatever it takes to clean up and rebuild, to beef up security, and to pursue military and intelligence responses against terrorism. A special appropriation of $40 billion has already been enacted for these purposes, and that sum is regarded as just a small down payment on the funding that will eventually be necessary. In addition, another $15 billion has been approved to assist the nation's airlines, and a broad economic stimulus package that will total $50 billion or more is in the works. Most analysts are saying a return to deficit spending seems likely. But this does not mean the spending floodgates will be similarly opened for more regular appropriations. On the contrary, at least for the time being, it appears that both parties are still committed to fiscal restraint in the normal operations of government. That means business as usual will likely prevail in the deliberations over most programs, with the White House and conservative congressional Republicans continuing to press for fiscal restraint and the Democrats and Republican moderates continuing to seek only marginal increases for programs they especially favor. For example, the only issue that has been holding up the remaining work on FY2002 appropriations since September 11 has been the question of whether to add a relatively insignificant $6.2 billion to the FY2002 budget, to increase funding for K-12 education and assistance for natural disasters. In other words, at least for now, it appears that--in general--the amounts of funding that wind up being provided for programs important to research universities will likely be about the same as they would have been before the September 11 attacks. There may be some exceptions. Defense research and other research programs with security implications may get some extra money (although most of the new defense and security-related spending will be for current operations, not things with long lead times like research.) And extra funding for K-12 education may free up some room for more spending on Pell Grants and the like. But it is probably a mistake to expect broad windfalls. Where things stand (II): As has been noted above, the effort to wrap up FY2002 appropriations has been held up since September 11 by a dispute over extra funding for K-12 education and natural-disaster relief. That dispute is now essentially settled (the White House has agreed to the extra funding), and appropriators will shortly begin working in earnest to finish their bills. The appropriators have a lot left to do. So far, even though FY2002 has now officially begun, none of the 13 FY2002 appropriations bills have been finished and sent to the White House (for now, programs are being kept running through a so-called continuing resolution that will last through October 16). See Attachment 1 for an AAU chart that details the status of all the appropriations bills. In summary:
There's also the matter of pressure to adjourn for the year, which is always an important factor in completing appropriations work. Right after September 11, it appeared that members of Congress from both parties were eager to finish everything up and adjourn as quickly as possible so the Administration could pursue responses to the terrorist attacks without distractions. But the mood in Congress has now changed and views on adjournment are mixed. At the individual level, some would still like to finish and get out of the way but others want to be--or be seen as--players in whatever happens next. At the party level, the Republicans are worried about being blamed in next fall's elections for having adjourned at a time when the economy was in turmoil. And the Democrats are worried about letting a GOP White House--and thus, by extension, the Republican Party--occupy center stage for a long period. Both parties' leaders are still trying to sort all this out. For now, it seems safe to predict that the appropriations process won't be completed before the end of October, at the earliest. And it's entirely possible that it could stretch well into November and beyond. Where things stand (III): The security concerns raised by the events of September 11 have understandably prompted legislative efforts to address those concerns. Some of those efforts will have implications for universities, some of which could be broad. One effort that would undoubtedly have broad implications for universities is planned legislation by Senator Diane Feinstein (D-CA) that would impose a six-month moratorium on the student visa program to give time to institute a series of reforms. The higher education community supports the senator's proposed reforms but strongly opposes the idea of a moratorium of any duration. See Attachment 2 for the senator's press release on her legislation, and see Attachment 3 for American Council on Education talking points concerning the legislation. The main legislative effort in this area will be a package of anti-terrorism proposals based on a set of proposals presented by the Administration during the last week of September. The Administration's proposals include provisions that would affect university administration and research in areas including access to student records, responsibilities of Internet service providers, and use of hazardous materials (specifically biochemical agents). With regard to access to student records, many universities have already been contacted by law enforcement authorities requesting such access. These records are currently protected by the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA), which prohibits disclosure of student information without consent. However, according to information provided by the Department of Education, institutions may disclose records, without consent, to government officials in order to carry out lawful functions, and to persons who need to know in cases of health and safety emergencies. The Administration proposes to clarify current law and the instances when such information from student education records relating to terrorism can be shared without the consent of the student. The AAU and other higher education associations are working with congressional staff to ensure that any changes to the law continue to allow access to needed information while at the same time protecting student rights and the liability of the institution. With regard to online service providers, the Administration proposes to authorize government requests for increased assistance from service providers--including universities--and to expand the circumstances under which service providers would have to disclose or maintain certain information at the request of government entities; proposals are being developed to protect service providers from liability for providing government-requested information, for meeting the costs of expanded information maintenance, and for assuring that service providers do not have to reconfigure their systems to meet information requests that exceed their current technical capabilities. With regard to biological agents or toxins, the Administration proposes greater latitude for law enforcement authorities to prosecute suspected terrorists who possess these items for use as a weapon. It also proposes new licensing and other administrative requirements for possession of these dangerous substances, although these requirements either include a clear exemption for research or appear to be largely consistent with existing procedures. AAU is reviewing the administration's proposals and existing law carefully, with the goal of ensuring that legitimate research use of biological agents or toxins does not expose faculty or other university personnel to unfair risk of prosecution. AAU and allied organizations will continue to review these and other proposals carefully as they develop and keep campuses advised. Where things stand (IV): In the wake of September 11, most of the non-appropriations-related issues that had been under debate in the capital have been put on hold--presumably until next year. But not all of them. For the university community, three issues in particular remain on the table. The first two of these issues are the related issues of human-subject protection and financial conflicts of interest in research. The Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, which had been planning to hold a hearing September 13 on both these issues, has now rescheduled that hearing to October 16. At the hearing, the General Accounting Office is expected to present the results of a review of the systems for protecting human research subjects and handling conflict-of-interest issues at five major universities.1 Also in this issue area, the AAU is currently putting the finishing touches on a report of its own that will make specific recommendations for strengthening universities' oversight of conflicts of interest in research. This report should be released prior to the October 16 hearing. The third issue still on the table is academic earmarks, which the Administration remains determined to restrain. On September 19, Office of Management and Budget director Mitch Daniels convened a meeting with the community to discuss ways to deal with the issue. The meeting was attended by representatives of 11 scientific and academic organizations, including the AAU and NASULGC. No conclusions were reached at the meeting, but there seemed to be a general consensus that an already-planned October 3 workshop on the subject constituted a good first step for further deliberations. See Attachment 4 for a Science magazine report on the meeting. The October 3 workshop will be held at the Carnegie Institution in Washington, D.C. It is being cosponsored by the National Academies of Science, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, AAU, and NASULGC. It will include an evaluation of the different definitions that have been employed by OMB, AAAS, and the Chronicle of Higher Education to quantify the extent of noncompetitive, specified earmarks in the research budgets of federal agencies, and a discussion of the reasons why earmarking occurs, the perspectives of research universities, and possible implications for the conduct of science. Participants will include former U.S. Senator J. Bennett Johnston (D-LA), federal agency representatives, and representatives of the research community. University of Virginia president John Casteen III will moderate. During the workshop, AAAS will release an analysis of R&D earmarks in the FY2002 appropriations process so far, based on completed House and Senate versions of appropriations bills. The analysis will be made publicly available that day in the "What's New" area of R&D section of the AAAS website at www.aaas.org/spp/dspp/rd/rdwwwpg.htm. Update (I): The last issue of this newsletter cited a controversial August 16 ruling by the Maryland Court of Appeals in a case involving two lawsuits against the Kennedy Krieger Institute, a research facility affiliated with the Johns Hopkins University. The lawsuits had been brought by parents who allege that the institute did not fully inform them of the risks of a lead-paint abatement study it had conducted, and did not advise them in a timely manner when their children's blood-lead levels rose. The appeals court ruling, which was handed down in August, allowed the lawsuits to proceed. But the appeals court also went much farther than that: it condemned the manner in which the entire study was conducted, and it ruled broadly that it is illegal in Maryland for parents or guardians to give consent for children or legally impaired adults to participate in nontherapeutic research that poses any level of risk. On September 17, the institute filed a motion asking the court of appeals to reconsider its broad ruling about parents and guardians granting consent. The institute argued that this ruling would make a great deal of research involving children or legally impaired adults impossible to conduct in Maryland, since most medical research is nontheraputic in nature and virtually all research involves some level of risk. The same day, the AAU joined with the American Association of Medical Colleges, Johns Hopkins, and the University of Maryland Medical System in filing an amicus brief supporting the institute's motion concerning the broad ruling. The amicus brief did not ask the court to reverse the portion of its ruling that allowed the lawsuits to proceed. It simply argued that the court had gone too far in demanding a zero-risk standard for research involving children and legally impaired adults. On September 29, the Washington Post weighed in with an editorial that sharply attacked the court's ruling. The Post said the court had been flatly wrong in characterizing the institute's lead-paint study as an "amoral experiment that put children at risk and offered them no benefit." It said the institute had "pioneered the study of lead hazards" and there was "nothing unethical about the study's basic design, which has influenced federal projects in many more cities." The editorial went on to say the following:
The institute may have made some mistakes. The doctrine that researchers have no legal responsibility toward their research subjects, advanced by lawyers in the institute's name, could have done much damage if upheld. The issue of whether researchers owed children extra medical treatment if their blood lead levels started to rise, besides informing their parents, doctors and health authorities, is a matter of researcher-subject obligation that the broader research community should ponder. See Attachment 5 for a press release on the September 17 amicus brief and Attachment 6 for the Post editorial. The full texts of the institute's September 17 motion and the accompanying amicus brief are available on the AAU website at www.aau.edu/research/integri.html. Update (II): In July, the federal government suspended all federally funded human studies at Johns Hopkins University's medical institutions in the wake of the death of a healthy volunteer in an asthma research study (PAR 8/3/01). Hopkins medical officials reacted angrily at first, charging the government with overreaction. However, they quickly reached agreement with the government on a corrective-action plan that required detailed reviews of about 2,700 human studies that had been underway. On September 26, the Baltimore Sun reported that about half of the suspended Hopkins studies have now been reviewed and restarted, and that Hopkins officials hope to restart all of them by November. But the Sun said one of the most telling developments at Hopkins "is the conciliatory tone being set by administrators and doctors, who appear to be getting past their initial anger toward the federal agencies that disciplined them." The Sun's elaborations on this point included the following:
Dr. Chi Dang, the vice dean for research, acknowledges that Hopkins had wrongly convinced itself that its esteemed research program was beyond reproach. Now, he is calling for a "new culture" in which Hopkins not only accepts criticism but actively seeks it. "Obviously, we went through a little denial stage, as we all do when we have bad news," said Dang in a re cent interview. "The spirit of the place changed very rapidly from denial to saying, 'We want to achieve excellence, and how do we achieve excellence?' It becomes a challenge rather than a burden." See Attachment 7 for the Sun story. Trendlines: Collateral damage: By all reports, the underlying slump in the economy and the specific economic aftershocks of the September 11 terrorist attacks are forcing major budget cuts in an increasing number of states. No comprehensive data are available yet, but see Attachments 8 and 9 for two late-September Washington Post pieces that give a flavor of the situation. States in the Midwest and Plains are said to be particularly hard hit, along with states elsewhere that are heavily dependent on sales taxes for revenue. Publicly supported colleges and universities will likely be affected in many instances. Taking stock: See Attachment 10 for a lengthy set of articles that examines trends in undergraduate science education in the U.S. and worldwide, from the August 31 issue of Science magazine. Individual articles focus on such topics as efforts to improve introductory science courses, the pros and cons of undergraduate research programs, the difficulties of teaching science online, and efforts to attract more women and minorities to science. In an accompanying editorial (Attachment 11), Science editor Donald Kennedy poses some provocative questions for research universities. The editorial says, in part:
A diagnosis of how we are faring would yield a mixed report for the industrial world. For example, only a small proportion of students in the United States, having entered college less well prepared than European and Asian youth, decides to major in science. The national average hovers around 8% of all enrollees. But the fine structure is interesting. In the selective undergraduate liberal arts colleges, it may be as high as 20 to 25%--larger and faster growing than in comparable research universities. The former also go on to earn doctorates at a much higher rate. For the decade 1986 through 1995, the proportional Ph.D. productivity of undergraduate institutions was far higher than that of the research universities; the top five included four liberal arts colleges. The top two, Reed and Swarthmore, nearly doubled the proportional productivity of Harvard and Yale. Moving up: The addition of two more women to high-profile university presidencies this summer (Shirley Tilghman at Princeton and Ruth Simons at Brown) is focusing greater attention on the increasing roles women are playing in academic leadership. For example:
The report was based on employment records of 16,000 older faculty members at 104 colleges and universities. It is entitled "Did the Elimination of Mandatory Retirement Affect Faculty Retirement Flows?" See Attachment 16 for the Chronicle of Higher Education story. The full text of the report is available online at http://papers.nber.org/papers/W8378.pdf. Winners and losers: See Attachment 17 for the results of a Chronicle of Higher Education analysis of graduate student stipends at the AAU's U.S. member institutions--the first such analysis of its kind. Not surprisingly, the Chronicle found wide disparities between stipends for graduate students in the humanities and social sciences and graduate students in the physical science and engineering. And also not surprisingly, the Chronicle found a "widening gap" between stipends for all graduate students at the AAU's public and private members. The Chronicle noted that the compensation received by graduate students is assuming greater significance "in a time when increasing union activity underscores [these individuals'] role as workers." AAU Notes: Taking stands: Much has been done and said by university presidents and chancellors in the aftermath of September 11. Of the actions and statements seen here, two stand out for being distinctly different: First, in a September 19 letter to the editor of the Houston Chronicle, University of Texas at Austin president Larry Faulkner publicly rebuked a faculty member named Robert Jensen who had published an op ed in the newspaper a few days before. In his op ed (Attachment 18), Jensen had said that although the actions of September 11 were "reprehensible and indefensible," they were "no more despicable than the massive acts of terrorism--the deliberate killing of civilians for political purposes--that the U.S. government has committed during my lifetime. . . . So, my anger is directed not only at individuals who engineered the Sept. 11 tragedy, but at those who have held power in the United States and have engineered attacks on civilians every bit as tragic. That anger is compounded by hypocritical U.S. officials' talk of their commitment to higher ideals, as President Bush proclaimed 'our resolve for justice and peace.'" Other faculty at other universities have been making similar statements but those statements have, for the most part, gone unanswered. Faulkner's letter to the editor was as follows:
In his Sept. 17 Outlook article "U.S. just as guilty of committing own violent acts," Robert Jensen was identified as holding a faculty appointment at The University of Texas at Austin. Jensen made his remarks entirely in his capacity as a free citizen of the United States, writing and speaking under the protection of the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. No aspect of his remarks is supported, condoned or officially recognized by The University of Texas at Austin. He does not speak in the University's name and may not speak in its name. Using the same liberty, I convey my personal judgment that Jensen is not only misguided, but has become a fountain of undiluted foolishness on issues of public policy. Students must learn that there is a good deal of foolish opinion in the popular media and they must become skilled at recognizing and discounting it. I, too, was disgusted by Jensen's article, but I also must defend his freedom to state his opinion. The First Amendment is the bedrock of American liberty. Second, Duke University president Nannerl Keohane September 24 issued a response to students and faculty who had asked her, in her words, "to speak against the militaristic tone of what they see as the dominant national rhetoric." In her response, which was published in the campus newspaper, she declined to make such a statement, and in frank terms explained why. The full text of her response is included as Attachment 19. It reads, in part: There are two different issues here. One is the specific position taken by the petitioners against the use of military force. The other is the call for open discourse, as befits a democratic nation. I agree strongly with the second view; I cannot agree with the first, but by providing my reasons for holding this opinion, I hope to encourage others to express their own perspectives. The most prominent theme in the letters was that "violence begets violence." Therefore, it was argued, our nation should refrain from responding with force to these violent attacks. It is surely true that the use of violence in some contexts can engender a horrificcycle of increasing violence; calls for revenge motivated only by the desire to get back at those who hurt you, blindly, without thinking about consequences, are very likely to be met with counter-revenge. However, in my view, the people who orchestrated the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon are not in the least likely to respect or respond to non-violence. I would argue that we are currently in a situation where violence indeed begets violence, but in a different way: if the violence of September 11th goes unchecked, it begets yet more violence from those who originally launched it, emboldened in a murderous cycle of their own making. Thus I believe that in this instance only some kind of forceful response can put an end to violence. I am sadly convinced that if we refrain from ANY use of force, the inevitable consequence will be more and more terrorist attacks on our nation and around the world. I have not yet heard a strategy for how peaceful responses might render future attacks of this sort unlikely; I look forward to hearing this part of the argument articulated more fully in the coming days. Spreading the word: On September 11 (bad timing in retrospect, but no one could have predicted that) the University of California, Los Angeles launched a two-pronged advertising campaign in the Los Angeles Times. One prong of the campaign is a series of biweekly "advertorials" that will run in the Times' op-ed section. The first advertorial introduced the series and discussed the ways in which the university serves the community. The second advertorial discussed the events of September 11 and the university's responses to those events. The other prong is a series of weekly image ads, calendar ads, and messages from various parts of the campus. These will run for a full year on page two of the Times' main news section. See Attachment 20 for the first two advertorials and examples of the weekly materials. Using the web: The University of Nebraska-Lincoln has developed an "Agbiosafety" website that is intended to provide consumers, educators and policy makers with comprehensive, up-to-date information on crop biotechnology issues. The site was funded by a grant from the Council for Biotechnology Information, which is an industry group. But UNL faculty say the university has sole editorial control. The site includes the following: an "Education Center" that contains reference information, case studies, and study materials for use in both college and high school classrooms; a "Questions Answered" section that addresses frequently asked questions and current issues in crop biotechnology and food safety; and a searchable database containing safety information about bioengineered crops. The site can be found at http://www.agbiosafety.unl.edu/. Other campuses that are wrestling with bioengineering issues may find it to be a useful resource. Loosening up: Yale University has joined peer institutions that have liberalized their undergraduate financial aid policies. Under Yale's new policy, which was announced September 5, the average student contribution toward tuition costs will drop significantly starting next fall--from $10,420 to $5,900 for juniors and seniors, for example. Direct university grants will make up the difference. The university estimates that the policy shift will cost $7.5 million annually. That sum represents less than one-tenth of one percent of the institution's $10-billion endowment. See Attachment 21 for Yale's news release. In the spotlight: See Attachment 22 for a San Diego Union-Tribune article that examines the ways in which the University of California, San Diego, "is spending millions to attract and retain the smartest faculty it can get." Some other newspapers have sharply criticized this kind of "arms race" but this article does not do that. Instead, it emphasizes that UCSD "in just 40 years . . . has moved from a few army barracks to a rival of the Ivy Leaguers." Transitions: Duke University has named David Jarmul, deputy director of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute's communications department and head of the institute's Web team, as associate vice president of news and communications at Duke University. The appointment is effective in mid-October. Jarmul will be responsible for leading Duke's Web efforts, as well as its news and information services. In the latter area, he will succeed Al Rossiter Jr., who is retiring after 10 years as assistant vice president and director of the Duke News Service. . . . Robert O'Rourke, Caltech's associate vice president for institutional relations, has been promoted to the position of vice president for public relations, effective October 1. In this new position, O'Rourke's duties will expand beyond his current responsibility for public relations and public events to include oversight of government and community relations. Media Notes: Yahoo! Internet Life magazine's annual ranking of the nation's "most wired colleges" has always been controversial, and this year's ranking is no exception. This time the controversy has been sparked by the fact that four of the top ten schools on the magazine's list didn't even participate in the magazine's survey. See Attachment 23 for the Chronicle of Higher Education story, which quotes one university information officer as saying, "It's an unbelievably stupid survey." -Peter Smith Footnotes 1 The GAO review, which began in February (PAR 3/2/01), was commissioned by Senator Bill Frist (R-TN). |