Faculty Senate rejects ban on tobacco industry research funding by 21-10 vote
BY KATHLEEN J. SULLIVAN
The Faculty Senate last week rejected a proposal to ban research funding from the tobacco industry, defeating the motion in a 21-10 vote.
It was the second time administrators and faculty had debated the motion, which was introduced at the senate's April 19 meeting by the Committee on Research.
At both meetings, President John Hennessy and Provost John Etchemendy, along with several faculty members, opposed the measure, saying such a ban would undermine academic freedom and open the door to requests to prohibit funding from other industries.
They also rejected the idea, put forth by proponents, that Stanford should adopt the ban because the tobacco industry is skilled at twisting research results to suit its own ends.
"Right now, British Petroleum and Exxon together will be funding more projects in alternative energy in universities than the entire amount funded by the U.S. government," Hennessy said last week. "They have certainly twisted research periodically with respect to global warming and other environmental issues. Does that mean we shouldn't take that money?"
Marcus Feldman, a biological sciences professor who opposed the ban, said the debate forced him to reflect on his graduate school days during the Vietnam War, when the U.S. military funded his research in mathematical biology. That research spawned the field of computational biology, which would "not have been born without funding from a very unpopular organization that, in fact, was bringing death and destruction around the world at the same time," he said.
Keith Baker, a history professor, said the behavior of the tobacco industry had been egregious but disliked the idea of making an exception to the university's existing policy.
"I also think it's better to broaden the policy than to risk abridging it by introducing exceptions," he said. "In my view, we should broaden the research policy statement regarding professional ethics to express the fundamental moral concerns that are at stake in this case."
Proponents of the ban argued that the tobacco industry is a unique case, because its products are the leading cause of preventable deaths—450,000 deaths annually in the United States and 5 million per year around the world—and because the industry has a long history of minimizing the hazards and denying the links between cigarettes smoking and disease.
"If you travel now in Africa or the Middle East, you will find the tobacco companies still addicting people, still doing everything that they've done over the years," said Russell Fernald, a professor of biological sciences.
At the April 19 meeting, law Professor Hank Greely said the medical schools and public health schools at Harvard and Johns Hopkins had passed similar resolutions without negative consequences. At both meetings, he urged colleagues to take the moral high ground.
"The tobacco industry, uniquely, I think, has caused, is causing and will continue to cause incredible human carnage around the world," he said. "Our willingness to enter into these funding agreements with them helps them continue that carnage. We should not help them."
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