F69-12 PROHIBITION OF CLASSIFIED RESEARCH; ACADEMIC FREEDOM

Legislative History:

Document dated November 26, 1969

At its meeting of November 24, 1969, the Academic Council approved the following policy recommendation on Classified Research presented by Chairman Lawrence Lee of the Research Committee.

ACTION BY COLLEGE PRESIDENT:

"Approved." Signed: H. W. Burns, December 3, 1969.

CLASSIFIED RESEARCH

F 69-12

WHEREAS, San Jose State College recognizes that one of its primary responsibilities is to provide the faculty opportunities to conduct research and advanced studies in their specialities and to freely publish the results thereof, and that such programs of study and research may be conducted by individual faculty members, informal groups of faculty and students, as well as by structured groups such as organized research units; and

WHEREAS, The College imposes no limitation on the faculty's freedom to choose fields of inquiry nor of the medium through which results of such inquiries will be disseminated; and

WHEREAS, It is the belief of the Council that it is the responsibility of the researcher to make the significant results of his inquiry freely available to his colleagues and to the public; therefore be it

RESOLVED: That the College's role and responsibility in both research and education thus imply insistence upon the following principles:

1. The College will accept no grant or contract to carry out research under circumstances that restrain the freedom of the College or the principal investigator from disclosing (a) the existence of the grant or contract or (b) the nature of the inquiry to be conducted or (c) the identity of the outside contracting or granting entity.

2. The College will accept only research contracts or grants for projects whose principal purpose is to produce results which will be freely available and freely publishable in the ordinary manner of open research in the relevant discipline.

3. The College will accept only research contracts or grants that clearly retain for faculty investigators full and free rights to determine what they shall publish. It is understood that the terms of a grant or contract may properly require the preparation of privileged reports to the sponsor as quid pro quo of his support so long as the principal purpose of the grant or contract is to produce results, all of which in a reasonable period of time will be freely publishable in the manner previously described.

4. The College will accept no grant or contract which requires it to acquire a general facility security clearance.

5. The College will accept no grant or contract for which there is a reasonable possibility that research of a classified nature will be performed at San Jose State College.

6. No research on a thesis or dissertation should be undertaken or approved if there is a reasonable possibility that the research or the results thereof will be subject to government classification; and be it further

RESOLVED: That the Dean, Graduate Studies and Research, shall, at his discretion, appoint and convene an ad hoc committee to advise him of the appropriateness of a specific proposal request in accordance with the above guidelines.