Political Quotes

“on Saturday, February 1, Wilcomb Washburn, a champion of unfashionable truths and a scholar in the truest sense of the word, died here in Washington. He had retired as director of the Smithsonian's American Studies Program exactly a month before, on January 1, after almost 40 years at the institution. He was 72 years old. He remained dedicated, most especially, to the integrity of academic life and to keeping the spirit of free inquiry from being compromised by politics. Perhaps more than anyone else, he recognized the grave threat posed by the politicization of scholarly professional associations. Last year I had the honor to present him with the National Association of Scholars' Sidney Hook Award in recognition of his work. In his acceptance speech, he quoted the sociologist James Coleman, the first recipient of the Hook Award: "The greatest enemies of academic freedom in the university are the norms that exist about what kinds of questions may be raised in research." Coleman was nearly expelled from the American Sociological Association for his findings on the effect of home and neighborhood environment on learning. Wilcomb Washburn had a vision of the academy as a place that would live up to the ideal of the open society in which no claims on truth are more privileged than others.”