President Ronald Reagan’s national address on his proposed defense budget (March 23, 1983) Reagan called for the development of an expensive and scientifically unrealistic Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI) system, nicknamed “Star Wars”, which also increased Cold War tension and caused controversy at American research universities who received funding for SDI research.
Read about higher education’s involvement in U.S. imperialism in the first half of the 20th century. Below I will talk about the second half of the 20th century.
In 1947, U.S. President Harry Truman signed the National Security Act which gave the secretary of defense increased control and authority over coordinating military departments. The Department of Defense (DoD) (recently rebranded as the Department of War) was established with a 1949 amendment to the National Security Act, combining the War and Navy departments. Federal funding from defense agencies, primarily the DoD, for academic research would take dark turns.
The Vietnam Years: Students & Faculty Push Back
Academic research funding from the DoD peaked in 1964-1966. By 1965 DOD funding was 24% of federal on-budget funds for research programs at universities (NCES 2001). Critics of the war vehemently protested university-military connections, including military research and training and draft deferments, which manifested itself in a widespread student movement.
Strikes among students and faculty occurred. In 1968, MIT faculty members organized a highly public strike against military funding of academic research (Leslie 1993). In some cases, universities dropped military curriculum or compulsory ROTC training. The DoD, in response to this anti-war criticism, as well as Lyndon Johnson’s call for more equitable funding distributions among colleges and universities, shifted funding to lower-ranking universities, who were less likely to protest such windfalls.
Michigan State University’s CIA Front in Vietnam
John Hannah, President of Michigan State University (MSU) from 1941-1969, had steadily worked to develop closer ties with the federal government. Subsequently, he was appointed by President Truman to be on the International Development Advisory Board which created policy for American diplomatic, economic, military, and technical assistance in so-called third world countries. By 1954, Hanna was sending faculty to Vietnam to survey the situation and provide policy suggestions.
The Michigan State University Group (MSUG) was formed to provide assistance in the areas of public administration, public information, police administration, and economics. Furthermore, they established the National Institution of Administration in Saigon which provided educational support. They advised on curriculum and helped start a library. By 1962, relations with MSUG and Prime Minister Diem broke down, and MSUG was not allowed to renew their contract (Alster 2014). But that was not the end of the saga.
Images from the scathing Ramparts article caricaturing The First Lady of South Vietnam (Madame Nhu) and President John A. Hannah April 1966
In April 1966, a scathing exposé in Ramparts magazine entitled “The University We Make” revealed the extent of MSUG activities in Vietnam, primarily exposing its CIA connections. Sheinbaum, a former MSUG campus coordinator, teamed with muckraking journalist Robert Scheer to write the article, which revealed that the CIA men in the project had been listed as MSU staff and had been formally appointed by the university’s trustees. Some of the CIA men even achieved faculty status. The professors trained Diem’s security forces and provided ammunitions, thus helping “to secure Diem’s dictatorship and to provide the base and the arms of the ‘secret police’ where were to make Madame Nhu and her brother infamous at a later date” (Hinckle et al. 1966). The article was explosive and three national television networks, and news outlets like The New York Time, picked up the story. John Hannah and others in the project roundly denied allegations.
However, Ralph Smucker, former head of MSUG, confirmed the existence of the CIA in MSUG. These revelations continued to fuel the anti-war movement at MSU (Alster 2014; Ramparts v. MSU v. The CIA: The University on the Run 1966). The article contributed to the anti-war movement at MSU led by the Michigan Students for a Democratic Society (SDS). Such revelations fueled questions about the influence of military funding on intellectual exploration and academic freedom. These issues would continue to resurface in subsequent decades.
By the late 1960s, the DoD withdrew funding from universities in favor of government or private labs (Geiger 2019). By 1970, the DoD was only funding approximately 16% of university research and 10% in 1975 (NCES 2001).
Star Wars to 9/11: Détente with the DoD?
The distance between academia and the DoD did not last for long. By the late 1970s, increased interest in advanced weapons systems as well as predicted doctorate shortages increased the appeal of DoD funding for university research. The 1970s saw a general decline of federal funding for institutional development grants and support, though funding for research projects remained steady (Geiger 2019). Some doctorates struggled to find jobs in areas they were trained in, and the number of earned science and engineering doctorates began to decline from 1980 to 1988. Funding shortages and a recession resulted in interest in DoD funding, as evidenced by the AAUP’s and university presidents’ testimonies to Congress, to support and accept increased DoD funding. These representatives argued that the current “disrepair” of university research threatened the nation’s economy and national security (Kistiakowsky 1989).
Graphic of SDI, which proposed a vast network of laser-armed satellites, air-based missiles, and ground-based interceptors’ missiles and electromagnetic railguns to intercept incoming nuclear intercontinental ballistic missiles. The program violated the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty and escalated tensions with the Soviet Union.
The Reagan Administration facilitated these interests. In 1981, the administration called for $316 million, triple the 1976 amount, in DOD funds to support basic university research (NSF 2021; Abrams 1989; Walsh 1981). Moreover, President Reagan’s infamous “Star Wars” speech resulted in the establishment of the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI) in 1984:
I call upon the scientific community in our country, those who gave us nuclear weapons, to turn their great talents now to the cause of mankind and world peace, to give us the means of rendering these nuclear weapons impotent and obsolete President Ronald Reagan March 23, 1983
The SDI promoted technology that involved space-based elements to shield the U.S. from nuclear attack. Within a year, several technical reports revealed SDI’s infeasibility. However, the program was presented to Congress and promoted by the Reagan administration as being almost certainly achievable. Two camps immediately developed, between scientists associated with weapons laboratories and those siding with groups like the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) that warned of the SDI’s infeasibility and potential to escalate tensions between the U.S. and Soviet Union (Slayton 2007).
In an attempt to gain university support, the Strategic Defense Initiative Office of Innovative Science and Technology (SDIO/IST) was established to fund university research in relevant areas. This drew widespread criticism, with senior research personal publicly pledging not to accept such money (Kistiakowsky 1989). The presidents of Caltech and MIT publicly objected to the program, though the institutions remained outwardly neutral (Slayton 2007).
Supporters of Department of Defense (DoD) funding argued that it enabled universities to conduct high-quality research at relatively low cost by relying on graduate students and postdoctoral researchers. They contended that this funding would help maintain U.S. military technological superiority while also training scientists who understood and could address national defense challenges. In addition, DoD could fund advanced research facilities, equipment, and technical expertise that might otherwise have been unaffordable by universities. Proponents also maintained that defense-funded research often produced technological innovations that benefited the broader civilian economy.
Critics of DoD funding argued that military funding could create a culture of secrecy and coercion, thereby jeopardizing academic freedom. Critics also argued that scientists trained in weapons-related research might not easily transition to other fields. Furthermore, critics maintained that graduate students and postdocs (already vulnerable groups) might be forced to choose between their field and their conscience. They also warned that thesis research could be classified or redacted, which could seriously affect a student’s ability to pursue research careers outside of the DoD (González 2014; Abrams 1989; Kistiakowsky 1989).
Graph of Department of Defense expenditure in Research, Development, Test, and Evaluation Programs (R-1) for 1978-2019.
Ultimately there was a $30-Billion investment In SDI. More than 7,000 researchers, including many from like Cornell, MIT, and Caltech, signed a pledge to refuse SDI funds. Despite protest, the program was not unsuccessful in embedding defense research in universities with roughly $100 million allocated yearly in university research contracts. Research on SDI-related devices scaled down then ended with the fall of the Soviet Union. By 1990, DOD Funding was 15% of on-budget federal funds for university research programs (NCES 2001).
The 9/11 terrorist attacks and wars in Iraq and Afghanistan paved the way for increased DoD funding in higher education
By 2001, DoD funding for university research had fallen to a low of 8% (NCES 2001). In the next decade, the U.S. government significantly increased research funding and contracts to universities for defense research. By 2010, the DoD was one of the single largest federal funders for university research and was the top funder for engineering research and development (R&D) (AAAS). Meanwhile, along with the 2008 recession and declines in state and federal funding of public higher education, DoD funding was more enticing (González 2014).
Harvard employee Lex Berman protested the war in Iraq, March 13, 2003. Approximately 350 students, faculty and local residents attended the 12“Emergency Anti-War Rally”, organized by the Harvard Initiative for Peace and Justice,
This came with impingements on academic freedom. Chatterjee and Maria in The Imperial University argue that since the 9/11 terrorist attacks, scholars faced coordinated attacks on policing knowledge—student, staff, and faculty anti-war demonstrations have been repeatedly censured, slandered, punished and branded ‘unpatriotic”. This includes criticism of those who are vocal against U.S. wars and overseas occupations, in addition to the increasing privatization of the public university which blocks study of “dissident” and marginalized scholarly work. Furthermore, student antiwar protests and strikes resulted in some universities being placed on a watch list (Field 2006).
This attack on academic freedom continues to this day with faculty and students who criticize US military intervention facing censure, academic penalties, professional sanctions, loss of funding, and threats to legal status.
Conclusion
Programs like SDI used technological innovations to assert American influence and heighten global anxieties about war. Conflicts such as the Iraq and Vietnam wars worked to extend U.S. influence and were often characterized more by extended occupation and carnage than by democratic liberation. The consequences of academic collaborations with the military included assaults to academic freedom. The appeal of military funding could not be separated from the increasing corporatization of the university structure and had particularly serious consequences for public institutions struggling to secure state funding. Student, staff, and faculty critics of US military interventions faced legal, financial, and professional penalties. The “imperial university” ultimately works to justify American exceptionalism, military expansion, and an expanded overseas presence.
References
AAAS. Agency R&D and Budgets. https://www.aaas.org/sites/default/files/14pch05.pdf.
Abrams, Richard M. 1989. “The U.S. Military and Higher Education: A Brief History.” The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 502: 15–28.
Alster, Jake T. 2014. “Spartans in Vietnam: Michigan State University’s Experience in South Vietnam.” Grand Valley Journal of History 3(1).
Britannica, The Editors of Encyclopaedia. 2022. “U.S. Department of Defense.” Encyclopedia Britannica. https://www.britannica.com/topic/US-Department-of-Defense (March 18, 2022).
Chatterjee, Piya, and Sunaina Maira. 2014. “Introduction: The Imperial University: Race, War, and the Nation-State.” In The Imperial University: Academic Repression and Scholarly Dissent, Minneapolis, Minnesota: University of Minnesota Press, 1–50.
Field, Kelly. 2006. “Pentagon Places Antiwar Protests at 8 Colleges on Watch List.” The Chronicle of Higher Education.
Geiger, Roger L. 2019. “The Ascendancy of the University.” In American Higher Education Since World War II, Princeton & Oxford: Princeton University Press, 91–128.
Gibbons, MT, and NCSES. 2021. Higher Education R&D Increase of 3.3% Is the Lowest Since FY 2015. Alexandria, VA.
González, Roberto J. 2014. “Militarizing Education: The Intelligence Community’s Spy Camps.” In The Imperial University: Academic Repression and Scholarly Dissent, eds. Piya Chatterjee and Sunaina Maira. Minneapolis, Minnesota: University of Minnesota Press.
Hinckle, Warren, Robert Scheer, Sol Stern, and Stanley K. Sheinbaum. 1966. “The University On The Make.” Ramparts: 11–22.
Kistiakowsky, Vera. 1989. “Military Funding of University Research.” The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 502: 141–54.
Leslie, Stuart W. 1993. “The Days of Reckoning: March 4 and April 3.” In The Cold War and American Science: The Military-Industrial-Academic Complex At MIT and Stanford, New York: Columbia University Press, 233–56.
NCES. 2001. Federal Support For Education: Fiscal Years 1980 to 2001. Washington D.C.
———. 2021. Higher Education Research and Development: Fiscal Year 2020. Alexandria, VA.
NSF. 2021. National Center for Science and Engineering Statistics, Survey of Earned Doctorates. Alexandria, VA.
“Ramparts v. MSU v. The CIA: The University on the Run.” 1966. The Paper: 1,7.
Slayton, Rebecca. 2007. “Discursive Choices: Boycotting Star Wars between Science and Politics.” Social Studies of Science 37(1): 27–66.
Walsh, John. 1981. “DOD Funds More Research in Universities.” Science 212(4498): 1003–4.