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40

REPORT OF THE PRESIDENT

brotherhood. It means the freedom of the liberated spirit to under-
stand sympathetically those who misunderstand freedom and would
strike it down. It means the freedom for consideration of the plight
of unorganized and inarticulate peoples in an unorganized world in
which powerful combinations and high pressure lobbies work their
special will on the general life. In the university should be found
the free voice not only for the unvoiced millions but also for the
unpopular and even the hated minorities. Its platform should never
be an agency of partisan propaganda but should ever be a fair forum
of free opinion. Freedom should never mean a loss of the sense of
lawful and moral responsibility to the trustees and the people from
whom the university came and to whom her life returns manifold.

But this freedom of the university should not be mistaken for
approval of those who are merely sophisticated or who superficially
exploit the passing currents or great human causes, or who funda-
mentally debase the deep human passions and poison the springs
from which flow the waters of life. Such an abuse of freedom has the
scorn of scholars whose intellectual integrity and wholesome life
are a source of freedom. True freedom of self-expression does not
lead either to self-exploitation or to self-deterioration but rather leads
to the self-realization of the whole personality for the good life. No
abuse of freedom, however, should cause us to strike down freedom
of speech or publication, the fresh resources of a free university, a
free religion, and a free state.

Finally, freedom of the university means freedom of the scholar
to find and report the truth honestly, without interference by the
university, the state, or any interests whatever. If a scholar be enlisted
by the state for research on a mooted issue, though such scholarly and
independent report may be imputed to the University as an institu-
tion by powerful lobbies opposed to the report, the University will
stand by the right of the state to enlist the scholar and the freedom
of the scholar to make the report, whatever be the consequences. The
real destruction of the University would come from the university
administration's interference, or any other interference, with the
report. Without such freedom of research we would have no university
and no democracy.

These conceptions of the various forms of the freedom of the
university are stated for the sake of fairness. The only present
recourse for changing such conceptions is to change the University

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