JOHN SILBER

'John Robert Silber' (born August 15, 1926) is the controversial former president of Boston University and unsuccessful conservative Democratic candidate for governor of Massachusetts in the 1990 election. He was born in San Antonio, Texas and is the author of one book, part memoir and part political prescription.

Contents

Education and Early Academic Career

Boston University

Controversies

Political Activities

Writings

External links

Education and Early Academic Career

Silber graduated from Trinity University in 1947 and spent a year at Yale Divinity School and a semester at the University of Texas School of Law before returning to study philosophy at Yale University He studied Kant and issues on the philosophy of education.
Silber received his M.A. in 1952 and his Ph.D. He worked as a teaching assistant while doing graduate work. Peter H. Hare, Philosophy Professor Emeritus,[1] at SUNY State University of New York at Buffalo remembers[2] Silber as a teaching assistant at Yale in the mid-1950s when he was an undergraduate. Hare wrote, "George Schrader was the lecturer in the introductory course where John Silber was the TA leading my discussion section. Silber, a rabid Kantian, was the person with whom I had my first heated philosophical arguments as an adult."
Silber's first faculty job was at University of Texas at Austin where he chaired the Philosophy department from 1962-1967. While he was a student in philosophy at UT, Larry Hickman, Director, Center for Dewey Studies, Southern Illinois University at Carbondale said [3], "The department chairs during those years, John Silber and Irwin C. Lieb, were busy using Texas oil money to collect the very best faculty and graduate students they could find."
In 1967, Silber became Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences at UT. He was removed as Dean in 1970 by UT Regents Chairman Frank Erwin, ostensibly for his opposition to the division of the College into three units - a College of Humanities, a College of Social and Behavioral Sciences, and a College of Natural Sciences. However, Erwin was widely believed to have regarded Silber as too independent of Erwin's control. Silber left UT in 1971.

Boston University

Silber became the President of Boston University in 1971, and in 1996 became chancellor after stepping down as president. With an annual salary that reached $800,000, Silber ranked as one of the highest paid college presidents in the nation. That same year he was appointed by William Weld to serve as head of the Massachusetts Board of Education.
Dr Silber developed Boston University from a regional learning college to an international leading center. During his tenure he added Ellie Wiesel, Saul Bellow and Henry Kissinger to the academic talent.

Controversies

His tenure at Boston University was not without controversy. In the early 1980s, he courted conservative German publisher Axel Springer, the founder and owner of the Axel Springer AG publishing company and publisher of the tabloid newspaper Bild. The most popular newspaper in Germany and in all of Europe, the conservative Bild was at the forefront of the Cold War-era cultural wars against the Soviet Union and collectivist ideology. Springer, a target of the student radicals of the 1960s who had been denounced by such German intellectuals as Heinrich Böll, was awarded an honorary doctorate from B.U. in 1981.[4].
At the time of Springer's investiture, the primary (independent) student newspaper at B.U., the '''Daily Free Press''', as well as the unofficial student newspaper that had proved a gadfly during the Silber administration (whose staff members were featured on Mike Wallace's January 1980 60 Minutes piece on Silber), the '''b.u. exposure''', obtained and published university documentation about the marketing of honorary degrees. A list of potential honorees had been drawn up, based not on their merit but on their likely propensity to seek public honors and their ability or willingness to pay for it. Prominently mentioned in the documents was independent movie producer Joseph E. Levine, who had been born in Boston. Staff were instructed to make feelers to Levine, with the ultimate award to be on a sliding-scale system depending on his generosity to the university. A seven-figure donation to B.U. would garner the ultimate accolade, an honorary doctorate. (Levine never was awarded a degree from B.U.)
The Springer doctorate came after a decade long battle that Silber had waged against leftists on the B.U. faculty, which had included vetoing the hiring of Marxist philosopher Herbert Marcuse and a war of wills with political science professor Howard Zinn.[5] It was contemporaneous with a real estate scandal broken by the Boston Globe, in which it was revealed that B.U. was buying up properties in the Kenmore Square area of Boston from organized crime figures with ties to directors on the B.U. board.[6] These and other actions resulted in many protest actions, and likely contributed to a lower alumni giving rate.
A conservative on many issues, Silber refused to add "sexual orientation" to the university's non-discrimination clause. Also in 2000-2001, Silber upheld a campus-wide guest visitor policy across Boston University's housing system that is much stricter than other area universities. He justified the policy by arguing that lax visitor's policies would lead to students bringing "their sexual partners to the room for sessions of fun and games", according to an interview he conducted with the '''Daily Free Press''', B.U.'s student newspaper.
In 2002, Silber ordered that a B.U.-affiliated high school academy disband its gay-straight alliance. The alliance was a student club that staged demonstrations against homophobia. Silber dismissed the stated purpose of the club, that of serving as a support group for gay students that also sought to promote tolerance and understanding between gay and straight students, and accused it of being a vehicle for "homosexual recruitment". At the time, the Commonwealth of Massachusetts funded gay-straight student clubs in 156 schools. The move was a highly controversial one and engendered a great deal of criticism from the gay, progressive communities, including public condemnation by U.S. Representative Barney Frank in the '''Daily News'''. (Ironically, Silber's own son had died of AIDS in 1996.[7] Though his son may have been gay, Silber may be in denial, as he said in a 1992 interview in Newsday, "Decent parents don't even discuss [with their children] the possibility that there are homosexuals." [8])
In addition to policies that directly impact student life, Silber also made other controversial decisions that impacts Boston University's image. For example, he disbanded the football team during his tenure as president, citing financial losses. And, perhaps most controversial of all, were his actions related to denying tenure or promotion to particular faculty perceived as not sharing his views, resulting in public feuding and lawsuits.
Silber was on the board of trustees of Adelphi University in 1996 when the New York State Board of Regents dismissed seventeen of the trustees along with the president amidst charges of corruption made by the faculty union.
Nevertheless, it should be noted that during Silber's tenure Boston University's reputation improved, ranking consistently since 1970 as one of the top universities in the United States. He was directly responsible for the hiring of not less than 4 Nobel Prize winners in science.

Political Activities

Silber was the first chairman of the Texas Society to Abolish Capital Punishment and a leader in the integration of the University of Texas. He was involved in the creation of Operation Head Start.
In 1990 Silber ran for Governor of Massachusetts as a Democrat. His outsider status as well as his outspoken and combative style were at first seen as advantages in a year in which voters were disenchanted with the Democratic party establishment. After winning the Democratic nomination, Silber faced Republican William Weld. Silber's angry personality, which appalled many liberal voters, coupled with Weld's socially liberal views helped Weld in the race. Weld was able to hold on to a significant portion of the Republican base while appealing to large numbers of Democrats and left-of-center independents, enabling him to defeat Silber by four points. Weld became the first Republican to serve as governor since 1974. [9]
In 1998 Silber took on the cause of Benjamin LaGuer, an inmate proclaiming his innocence for a 1983 rape and who had earned a bachelor's degree magna cum laude through the Boston University prison education program. Silber continued to support LaGuer even after a 2002 DNA test which seemed to link him to the crime. In 2003 Silber testified to the parole board alleging "irregularities" in how the evidence was handled raising the possibility that the test was botched.

Writings

Silber has written one book, ''Straight Shooting: What's wrong with America and How to Fix It'' (1989). BU published one 32-page article by Silber, called "Democracy: Its Counterfeits and Its Promise" (1976) Other of his articles have been published in ''Philosophical Quarterly'', ''Philosophical Review'' and ''Kant-Studien'' where he served as editor.

External links

★ Boston University's biography of Silber

★ ''John Silber: President Emiritus of Boston University; Educator was Pioneer of Higher Education as a Business Paradigm''

★ Debate between Silber and Noam Chomsky over the Nicaraguan Contras

★ 'Village Voice' article accusing Silber of bigotry and homophobia

★ The Boston bully: Boston U. chancellor John Silber had a gay son who died of AIDS. So why is he such a dedicated homophobe?'' 'The Advocate' (Nov 26, 2002)

★ 'New York Review of Books' sequence of letters:

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★ Letter from professors at Boston University accusing Silber of violating academic freedom

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★ Response to the letter by the Boston University professors from a Silber supporter

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★ Rebuttal by the Boston University professors to the response by the Silber supporter