Pfefferbaum's 'neglect of academic duties' case disputed by colleague

On Easter Sunday I eagerly read the April 7 Stanford Report article, "Advisory Board marks 100 years of faculty power." As a decade-long faculty member, I welcomed the protection of my academic freedom implied by the subtitle: "After president forced professor to resign, group was established to ensure academic freedom." How gravely disappointing it was then to read the recounting of Professor Adolf Pfefferbaum's case against Stanford. Professor Pfefferbaum, a faculty member since 1974, was charged with "neglect of academic duties." His legal counsel, Stanford's former Congressman "Pete" McCloskey, characterized the charge as "trumped up" and unresponsive to Professor Pfefferbaum's grievance regarding retaliation toward Stanford professors at the Palo Alto Veterans Administration Medical Center (VA).

After following proper channels to seek university relief from retaliation and being refused at every turn, culminating in Provost Condoleezza Rice's rejection to consider his grievance, Professor Pfefferbaum committed the offense: He refused to accept a VA salary. He continued to work without pay until the VA denied him access to his own federally funded laboratory.

The Advisory Board concurred with the administration that by retiring from the VA, Professor Pfefferbaum, a tenured Stanford faculty member, had left his academic assignment and charged him with "neglect of academic duties that he had undertaken to perform within the university" -- a charge tantamount to locking the classroom door and then accusing a professor of not teaching. The board recommended that because of "Professor Pfefferbaum's distinguished career and his record of service to the Stanford Psychiatric community" he should be suspended for three years without pay and fined $20,000 rather than dismissed. Professor Pfefferbaum served the suspension and paid the fine. The article failed to note that the court ruled the fine illegal and required Stanford to return the money.

How could the Advisory Board be a partner in such action? To be generous, one might consider that it happened during the strong-arm Casper-Rice administration. The single-mindedness of the latter was evident as recently as in her testimony at the 9/11 hearings. What are the ramifications of the board's action? Tenure can now be locked to financial sources, undermining explicit tenets of the Faculty Handbook: "Individual scholars should be free to select the subject matter of their research, to seek support from any source for their work, and to form their own findings and conclusions." This protection Professor Pfefferbaum sought for all of us faculty.

Despite years of legal defense and personal cost, despite academic suspension and consequent dismembering of his world-class National Institute of Mental Health-funded clinical research center, and despite continued insult as perpetuated by the April 7 article, Professor Pfefferbaum's personal integrity and scientific reputation have endured undamaged in the national and international academic community.

So, before Stanford publications or the Advisory Board again recount their self-proclaimed proud heritage of protection of faculty rights and recite the litany of favorite notable actions, stop and reflect on the meaning and genesis of "neglect of academic duties" as applied to Professor Pfefferbaum. The term imbues severe wrongdoing -- in reality the offense was as proscribed as taking a stance against the Patriot Act; but the retribution lingers.

Edith V. Sullivan

Professor, Department of Psychiatry
and Behavorial Sciences

Editor's note: To read the Advisory Board's report on the case of Professor Adolf Pfefferbaum, visit the web at http://news-service.stanford.edu/news/1998/august26/pfeffreport.html.