What's with Defeated Regent Craig Lang's Mea Culpas to Iowa's Public Universities' Faculty? (Blog)

Defeated Iowa Board of Regents President Craig Lang leaves me scratching my head over his repeated mea culpas to Iowa's public universities' faculty and the press. Is he really sorry for his past mistakes? Is he hoping for another appointment of some kind from fellow Republican Gov. Terry Branstad?

Lang's apology included such statements as, "The president of the Board of Regents must work to know who the faculty is and what their lives are like . . . When you read in the paper I've made some mistakes, that's one of them."

No it isn't. It would be nice if he knew who the faculty are and what their lives are like, but that part of his job is strictly optional.

His serious and partially successful attempts to undermine academic freedom, especially at Iowa State University, are the problem.

Democratic Sen. Tom Harkin's reversal on donating his papers to Iowa State University, his alma mater, reflects Harkin's concern over Lang's meddling with the basic construct of the future mission of the proposed Harkin Institute at ISU.

Mr. Lang, when you say that you want ISU to speak with "one voice" on agriculture, it's clear that you want that voice to be yours. Your micromanaging of university presidents like ISU president Brian Leath in the performance of their duties makes it clear that your goal is to control the universities.

That's not how universities are supposed to operate. Academic freedom means that university researchers can research any topic they can get a grant for, any topic that someone pays them to research and provides the means to do so.

Many of the most important scientists in history were met with skepticism when they advanced their theories. The Catholic Church, a critical part of the established order in Italy, especially in the 17th century, threatened to torture Galileo to death when he said that the earth circles the sun, not the other way around. Galileo recanted to save his life, not because he was wrong.

We're not going to find a cure for cancer or a cure for the Dead Zone at the south end of the Mississippi River in the Gulf of Mexico unless research is freely pursued regardless of authoritarian power and peer pressure by the established order.

You didn't just step on a lot of toes, Mr. Lang, you ran amok over the concept of academic freedom itself, which should be upheld in principle even if it's not always upheld in fact. The corruption of academia is an old story and a new one. The corruption of academia is a full chapter in Charles H. Ferguson's "Predator Nation: Corporate Criminals, Political Corruption, and the Hijacking of America."

Some of the most prominent academics for hire listed in Chapter 8, "The Ivory Tower," are

Glenn Hubbard

Larry Summers

Frederic Mishkin

Richard Portes

Laura D'Andrea Tyson

Martin Feldstein

Hal Scott

John Campbell

Larry Summers was the Harvard president who stated that men and women have innate differences in math ability. He was also Pres. Clinton's Secretary of the Treasury and Pres. Obama's Director of the White House United States National Economic Council. Summers championed the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act signed by Bill Clinton, an act which effectively repealed Glass-Steagall and deregulated the banks. He also successfully fought efforts to regulate derivatives, which helped crash our economy. He's done a lot of harm, and got rich doing it.

Mr. Lang, we don't need another deus ex machina operating on the sidelines to make sure that academia is further corrupted to speak with "one voice" but without telling the truth. And that "one voice" will definitely not be yours.