Dr. Abraham L. Sachar, president of Brandeis University, today said he had received almost unanimous support from his board of trustees in his action of reprimanding a faculty member who told Brandeis students during the height of last fall’s Cuban crisis that she hoped that America would be defeated and shamed before the world in the event of war with Cuba.
The reprimanded faculty member is Dr. Kathleen Gough Aberle, a British anthropologist, who submitted her resignation earlier this month. Her husband, Dr, David Aberle, an American citizen who is also a professor of anthropology, tendered his resignation along with hers. The Brandeis president said he reprimanded Mrs. Aberle “not because she expressed a dissenting opinion, but because of the recklessness and the irresponsibility of her language.”
The Student Council voted 8 to 7 to censure Dr. Sachar for “violating academic freedom.” The 262-member faculty who voted on the matter admitted that Dr. Sachar “had the right to disassociate the university” from Mrs. Aberle’s speech to students; however, it approved a prepared statement by the Faculty Senate terming Dr. Sachar’s reprimand “an error of judgment that could be interpreted as an infringement of academic freedom. “
Dr. Sachar, in his statement today, said: “As president of the university, I had the responsibility to reprimand her. ” He pointed “with pride” to Brandeis’ record, during its 15 years of existence, in regard to faculty freedom. He noted that the very vote by those members of the faculty who disagreed with him on the Aberle issue “vindicates our contention that the faculty is not only competent in their fields of specialization but are independent in spirit and judgment. “
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
