Each footnote in the original statement appears here in square brackets [* . . .] immediately following the line of text with the asterisk that refers to it.

      Chancellor Broderick, Dean Hoopes, and Members of the Faculty. Thank you for voting to give me the privilege of the floor.

      I am here before you today because of what I believe should be considered a grave crisis in the governance of this University. Chancellor Broderick has rejected, without giving compelling reasons, recommendations for my reappointment by the Physics Department and the Tenure and Grievance Committee, and the resolution passed by the full-time faculty. That his reasons are not compelling ones is most easily demonstrated by the fact that the Tenure and Grievance Committee, after studying Mr. Broderick's rejection statement, unanimously reaffirmed its original findings and recommendation. Thus, Mr. Broderick has used his statutory power arbitrarily. By doing this even once, Mr. Broderick has demonstrated to every non-tenured faculty member that he can not be secure since even the Tenure and Grievance Committee can not protect him from arbitrary administrative actions. The implications of this situation with respect to the full flourishing of academic freedom on the campus are quite clear.

      In principle, I should not have to convince you, after the unanimous, unequivocally strong findings of the Tenure and Grievance Committee, that I have a justified grievance. However, faculty members have a legitimate interest in understanding the details of the case. Furthermore, the Tenure and Grievance Committee seems bound by confidentiality, mistakenly I believe, and chooses not to present the fully documented record to the community, even when the aggrieved faculty member requests it. Thus, the Administration and its supporters, by propagating misleading statements, false statements, and rumors, can cloud the facts.

      In particular, I have found that there is considerable confusion concerning my part-time status. There are, I believe, over fifty faculty members employed part-time, including individuals hired at the last minute to fill additional teaching positions. There may be little sense of commitment by these individuals to the University and by the University to the individuals. The fact that the part-time teaching staff does not vote on many questions, for example the faculty resolution on my case which was just passed, is a reflection of this situation. By continually referring to the part-time nature of my position, Mr. Broderick wishes you to infer that my appointment was in this category. Just the opposite is the case. It stems from the administration's opposition to granting tenure to both husband and wife when employed in the same department. However, the administration wishes to be in a position to recruit on a long-term basis well-qualified husband and wife teams -- obviously they are not likely to come on any other basis if they are well-qualified -- and still not appear to violate the AAUP*

      Mr. Broderick chooses to ignore our written confirmation of our original understanding. Instead he cites another statement written by Mr. Gentile at the request of Mr. Gagnon which outlines what Mr. Gentile believed the "legal" obligations of the University to be in my case.*

      I am mentioning these points only so that the statement which Mr. Broderick prefers to cite can be put into proper context. Of course, the issue here is not whether Mr. Gentile's position is a valid one. The crucial issue before the faculty is that faculty recommendations on personnel actions have been rejected without compelling reasons being given. Of course, there is also the issue that a faculty member has suffered the maximum injustice possible within the University, by having her position terminated unfairly, as confirmed by the TGC [Tenure and Grievance Committee] report.

      It should be apparent now to everyone that the reason given by Mr. Ryan, the previous Chancellor, for my non-reappointment, that "University policy quite clearly prohibits the contemporaneous appointment, within the same department, of close relatives", is completely false. The TGC report is quite explicit on this point. Mr. Broderick, in fact, concurs with ;the TGC on this point, since he indicated in his letter to the TGC rejecting its finding, that in the summer of 1967 Mr. Ryan and Mr. Gagnon, independently and arbitrarily, decided to enforce a "stricter interpretation" of policy than "Provost Tippo and Professor Gentile had used for the Salzman's initial appointment", and to apply it ex post facto to my case.

      An action by which an administrator promulgates a different practice and then applies it ex post facto to sever a faculty member from the institution can well be suspected of being a punitive one. In fact, from the summer of 1967 until my non-reappointment letter of August 31, 1968, George Salzman and I were subjected to a series of punitive and harassing actions by Mr. Gagnon and Mr. Ryan. In order to put these actions into proper context, it would be worthwhile to review for you briefly certain events which occurred during the first two years of the University's existence at Boston.

      As one of the two senior members in physics, I was responsible for the development of the physics program and the development of the University in general. I was elected and served on the first Senate; I served on the Library Committee and the Divisional Executive Committee. In these various activities, I came into the center of many conflicts. George Salzman, who also served on a variety of committees, including the first Senate Executive Committee and the Dean Search Committee, was involved in a variety of conflicts, too. Let me remind you of some of them. The first one in which I became strongly invloved occurred in the Spring of 1966 and concerned the core curriculum. I learned that the Academic Affairs Committee had proposed a highly inflexible core curriculum which, in the normal course of events, would, for example, have prevented math, physics, and chemistry majors from taking a math course until the third year. Fortunately, the language faculty felt similarly constraied and by joining forces with them and others who felt unhappy with the rigidity of the proposed program, we did succeed in making the curriculum less inflexible. In the process, I learned of Mr. Gagnon's significant role in shaping the original curriculum and his adamant position against any changes, regardless of the difficulties which the various disciplines faced in developing their programs.

      In the late fall of 1966, Mr. Ryan appointed the Dean Search Committee, in violation of the newly adopted Constitution. George Salzman took an active role in getting the committee enlarged, to Mr. Ryan's displeasure.

      In the spring of the second year, there occurred a series of conflicts. First, the whole Social Relations Department was wiped out due to conflicts with the Divisional Chairman and then-Acting Dean Gagnon. George Salzman actively worked to try to prevent this from happening, without success.

      Second, the newly formed Senate had already become badly politicized. The ability for this to happen rested on the Divisional system and the faculty distribution within divisions based on the core curriculum. At that time the dominant political faction strongly supported Mr. Gagnon. When the Senate Constitution had to be voted upon again that spring because of some changes, I worked to liberalize the by-laws. However, I voted against it because of the obvious defects it still contained.

      Finally, in May, George Salzman was involved in a determined struggle to do away with Divisions. In this case, he came into strong conflict with both Mr. Gagnon and Mr. Ryan.

      In retrospect, these do not seem unreasonable efforts to have been engaged in. It is to Chancellor Broderick's credit that he supported the Faculty efforts to bring about just these changes.

      There were also Divisional conflicts because of Mr. Gagnon's insistence that the three disciplines divide up amongst themselves totally inadequate resources. Finally, George Salzman, who was on the Dean Search Committee and realized its political nature, tried, without success, to prevent it from recommending Acting Dean Gagnon, which it did in the thrid year.

      Beginning in the summer of 1967, a series of punitive and harassing actions were taken against us. We learned of Mr. Ryan's memorandum on "Employment of Close Relatives" and we realized that Mr. Ryan, with Mr. Gagnon's support, was threatening my position on what they obviously knew to be false grounds. A leave of absence that I requested in July for the coming year was not being approved and instead, Mr. Ryan tried to force me to resign. When I refused and withdrew my request, the leave was immediately approved.

      When George Salzman sent a letter to Mr. Gagnon complaining of the harassment we were being subjected to, Mr. Gagnon replied, "I intend never to harass critics, but I do intend to act as rigorously as I can against obstructionists . . .". From this statement, one can infer that Mr. Gagnon considered us to be "obstructionists".

      In the late fall of 1967, George Salzman was singled out in the Division by the Divisional Chairman for a punitive reduction in the normal salary increment of 5% which the department had recommended. The Divisional Chairman who recommended instead 21/2% increase, gave as part of the reason, in a memorandum to Mr. Gagnon, George Salzman's "disruptiveness" in the Divisional Executive Committee and his "obstructionism". At the end of his recommendation, he stated

      "One further point is that his example may be followed by others in Physics. Younger men may be led down a primrose path to their detriment; they may not have the breadth of experience to realize that Professor Salzman's example is not a normal one, not a healthy one."

      Acting Dean Gagnon sustained the punitive reduction in the salary increment and in a memorandum to George Salzman, explaining his action, he made a series of misleading and false accusations of George Salzman's alleged failures. He concluded his memorandum with the statement,

      "I would remark only that no cry of "academic freedom" will deter me from weighing the costs to the University community of private crusades which ignore common courtesy, normal procedures or regard for the truth." This statement coming as it did right after the utterly false statements concerning George Salzman's failures, made clear what Mr. Gagnon's regard for the truth amouted to.

      These are some of the events which occurred. I could go on but I believe I have made the case that we were being subjected to harassment and punitive actions, the major one being, of course, Mr. Ryan's rejection of the Departmental recommendation for my reappointment on obviously false grounds.

      Chancellor Broderick has now rejected many faculty recommendations for my reappointment. There is still one point left to be made. In rejecting the TGC recommendation, Mr. Broderick cites allegations which Mr. Gagnon made in a memorandum dated August [11], 1968 that "the Salzmans conducted their affairs at the University in exactly the way that Trustees' policy on nepotism was designed to protect the University against." Although Mr. Broderick quickly admits that he has not evaluated Mr. Gagnon's allegations, he, nevertheless, suggests, without giving any evidence, that such reasons formed part of the basis for Mr. Ryan's decision. the fact that Mr. Broderick did not raise these points with the TGC when asked to comment on my brief, shows how unsubstantial these allegations are. It is important to realize that these allegations came after I was on a year's leave of absence at MIT, during which time I had only slight contact with the University. According to Mr. Broderick, the allegations came a year after Mr. Gagnon and Mr. Ryan had already made the decision to enforce a "stricter interpretation" of policy and to apply it to my case ex post facto.

      Mr. Broderick refuses now to allow the aggrieved parties access to these allegations. The TGC did receive these documents, according to a memorandum of Mr. Broderick to Mr. Lyons, Chairman of the Physics Department. Thus, the TGC report does reflect the TGC's knowledge and study of them. However, it is clear that we cannot properly appeal the case to the President and the Board of Trustees unless we have access to them, which we are being denied. I am certain that the allegations are malicious, and possibly slanderous, as will readily be seen once they are revealed. Mr. Broderick, in not disclosing them to us is protecting the accuser and not the accused, in an action where there is good reason to believe that the accuser acted in bad faith. This is in complete disregard of our concept of due process.

      In closing, let me say that I am certain that every non-tenured faculty member is keenly interested in what further actions you will take to insure that faculty recommendations, particularly those of the Tenure and Grievance Committee, are not rejected without compelling reasons being given.

      Clearly further supportive action by you in my case will be helpful to me in my efforts, which I intend to pursue inside the University and outside, to regain my former position. Such actions are invaluable when they serve to reenforce the legitimacy of my grievance in the eyes of those who are a priori less informed about my case than you.

      There is an apparent contradiction between Mr. Gentile's statement of August 10, 1967 (the statement written at Mr. Gagnon's request), which will be referred to as I, and his statement of August 11, 1967, referred to as II, in which he confirmed in a letter to Mr. Gagnon our original understanding as set forth in the August 10, 1967 statement of George Salzman. The apparent contradiction exists because in I, Mr. Gentile says:

      Mrs. Salzman was appointed as a part-time Associate Professor with the understanding that she is not eligible to obtain tenure. There was never any discussion of the permanence of her position. It is my understanding that her appointment was no different than that of any faculty member who is not appointed with tenure; namely, that she is reappointed annually and her contract may or may not be renewed each year at the discretion of the proper administrative authority . . .

whereas in II, he confirms his agreement with G. Salzman's statement which says, as its 5th point:

      5. It was clearly understood that this would be a permenent position, albeit without the possibility of formal tenure, and the implication was that removal would, as in all regular faculty positions, occur only for due cause.

      In a letter of clarification written on February 13, 1970 at G. Salzman's request, Mr. Gentile reaffirmed (and interpreted) his agreement with point 5. His sole reference to I was contained in one sentence, "Legally, as I indicated in my letter of August 10, 1967 to Dean Gagnon, her appointment was subject to annual renewal," which shows that in I, he was stating what he considered to be the legalities of my appointment. This distinction between the "legalities" of I and the understanding of II is brought out again by his next statement:

      I further agreed that her removal from this position would be, as in all faculty positions, for due cause. Legally, the university is not required to give a reason for terminating a faculty member's contract if the faculty member does not have tenure . . .(underline added).

      Even without the distinction discussed above, Mr. Gentile's statement I clearly indicates, at the very least, that my appointment was "no different than that of any faculty member who is not appointed with tenure" and that, therefore, my reappointment did not depend upon extraordinary circumstances or exceptional performance; nor did my reappointment require that each year an "exception" to the so-called nepotism policy be requested from and granted by the Board of Trustees. Mr. Gentile's statement I confirms the fact that the question of "employment of close relatives," per se, would not be an issue after our original appointments.