Word: ebert
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...university where the president and deans have always tried to avoid demonstrations, it is difficult to conceive of such a situation. Yet this is precisely what happened last spring: President Bok and Robert H. Ebert, dean of the Medical School, released statements to be read aloud at a demonstration against a University professor, Dr. Bernard D. Davis '36, Lehman Professor of Bacterial Physiology. First in a letter to a prestigious medical journal and later in comments to the press, Davis has asserted that academic standards in medical schools have fallen in recent years because of the rise in the number...
President Bok and Dean Ebert felt strongly about the last argument, the potential damage to minority recruiting programs. Bok's speech was characteristically tempered. He said he greatly regretted the recent "publicity" casting doubt upon the quality and competence of students at the Med School. Dean Ebert's statement was much more in keeping with the tone of the day. He assailed Davis on several counts of irresponsibility and later in a letter to the New England Journal of Medicine accused Davis of attacking all minority recruitment programs...
...repercussions within the Med School area were immediate. Dean Ebert said last week that patients became suspicious of black doctors and asked that white doctors examine them. Blacks were insulted; by using such words as awarding diplomas on a charitable basis, Davis had cheapened the blacks' hardwon gains. And students, who believed Davis's comments would lead admissions people to reevaluate their minority programs and adopt more stringent standards, felt compelled to correct the situation...
...still other letters, ones generally less favorable than those from strict conservatives, claim that the events at the rally and subsequent statements by Ebert--including a letter to 118 medical school deans calling Davis irresponsible--threatened Davis's academic freedom. Davis himself believes academic freedom is now the prime issue at stake. "The message seems to be," he says, "if you violate the taboo on public discussion of this subject you need not only risk misunderstanding but you risk excommunication. If such a policy is allowed to prevail in our universities what will be its effect on the future...
...Ebert considers Davis's case for academic freedom a "straw man." He adds that he felt "it was very important for me to write other medical schools saying Davis spoke for himself, not for the school--that's his academic freedom. But I have my own academic freedom, and it was important for me to say how I feel." Ebert says he believes Davis is not a racist--"the worst you could call him is insensitive," he says--and he doesn't doubt that there are other individuals who agree with Davis. They won't come forward, Ebert says, because...