Nine Schools Win $55-Million Lobbying Battle : Critics Say an Elite Clique Snags a Disproportionate Share of Research Funds

Those citadels of knowledge, America’s universities, are learning an old and hard lesson: It’s not just what you know, it’s who you know.

The lesson was reaffirmed in June in the rough-and-tumble world of Capitol Hill, where nine schools willing to play the political game won a $55-million lobbying battle and their opponents were left high-minded but empty-handed.

Old-fashioned pork-barrel politics--a time-honored tradition for building roads, bridges and post offices--has taken what some regard as a worrisome turn. Increasingly, direct lobbying and influence are eroding the professional merit review system of awarding university research money.

“The whole system has depended for 40 years on congressional self-restraint,” said Robert M. Rosenzweig, president of the Assn. of American Universities, a consortium of 50 leading research institutions.

‘Has Worked Well’

“It has worked well, because the members have persuaded themselves that if you cave in, you get second-rate science. But now, that self-restraint is breaking down.”

Some are saying it’s happening with good reason, though. They say an elite clique of a dozen or so universities, mostly on the East and West coasts, uses peer review requirements to snag a disproportionate share of federal research money.

“The question is, how do you get to be one of the peers?” asked Sen. Russell B. Long (D-La.). “The answer is, you do not. You just stay where you are. . . . From what I know about them, they have their brand of politics, just as we have ours. And they have their old-boy network, just as we have our old-boy network.”

The issue is a relatively new one, having arisen just four years ago when Columbia University and Catholic University learned they could go straight to Congress to win money to build new research laboratories.

Danforth Sees Trend

From a level of $3 million in 1982, the amount of money earmarked by Congress for specific schools grew to $137 million last year. “It has become a trend,” said Sen. John C. Danforth (R-Mo.), an opponent of the direct approach to research money. “Researchers have become lobbyists.”

The amounts are relatively small beside the billions doled out blindly by Congress through the merit review process. But Danforth and others fear that as discipline breaks down, the trickle could easily become a flood.

In 1979, just 20 colleges and universities were listed in a lobbying directory as having full-time representation in Washington. By this year, that number had tripled. The list includes everything from Dartmouth, Brown and Rutgers to Virginia Tech and Barry University in Florida.

Power of Pork

The Senate vote in June was a stark reminder of the power of pork.

On June 5, Danforth succeeded in striking all $80 million earmarked for defense research at 10 universities from a catchall spending bill. The vote was a solidly bipartisan 58 to 40, sending the bill to negotiations with the House without a shred of visible support for the backdoor funding method.

Even the proponents of the university aid had seemed kind of sheepish about it, promising in a non-binding report accompanying the bill that this was a one-shot deal, something that wouldn’t be repeated.

But when the measure came back from conference, the money was back--minus $25 million for Arizona State University that had been dropped after Sen. Barry Goldwater (R-Ariz.) voted against the package.

Miraculous Recovery

Danforth again challenged the provision, but this time lost by almost the same margin by which he had won earlier, 56 to 42.

The reason for the measure’s miraculous recovery could be found among the list of schools receiving money: Northeastern University, $13.5 million, is in the district of House Speaker Thomas P. (Tip) O’Neill Jr.; Wichita State, $5 million, and the University of Kansas, $2 million, are in the home state of Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole; Oregon Graduate Center, in the state of Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Mark O. Hatfield, got $1 million.

The other well-connected universities earmarked for funds are Rochester Institute of Technology, $11.1 million; Iowa State, $6.5 million; Oklahoma State, $1 million; Syracuse, $12 million, and Nevada-Las Vegas, $3.5 million.

And opponents of the earmarked aid charged that the promise of no more end runs around the merit review process was already being violated. Some members who switched their votes were being promised similar treatment for their schools on future appropriations bills, aides said.

Money for Library

Among those up in arms over the move are Pentagon officials, who say they are being asked to fund research facilities that have little to do with defending the country. For example, Northeastern wants its money not for research into high-speed integrated circuits, as the bill suggests, but for a library, said officials who spoke on condition that they not be identified.

The architect of much of the trend toward academic pork barrel is Gerald S.J. Cassidy, a lobbyist and former Senate aide whose university client list has grown to at least 20, paying a reported $60,000 to $200,000 apiece each year for a shot at the federal largess.

Cassidy refused to be interviewed on the growth of his business or any of the issues he has raised. “We don’t really have much to say, frankly,” said Tom Gannon, a Cassidy research associate.

But a Cassidy background paper makes the argument that universities in the Midwest, South, Southwest and Rocky Mountain states are rebelling at having been largely shut out of the funding process.

Congressional Clout

Proponents of using congressional clout to wrest money for research facilities also are playing on the growing realization that high-tech centers mean economic growth for the areas that woo them. The successes of California’s Silicon Valley and North Carolina’s Research Triangle have spawned a series of imitators.

Most of the academic establishment, including many “have-not” schools, are resisting the temptation. But the AAU’s Rosenzweig said university presidents tell him privately that if the dam is going to burst, they can’t afford to be last in line.

“It’s harder to hold the line” when economic arguments are dangled in front of a member of Congress, said Rosenzweig, who said he wouldn’t object to some sort of preference for economically needy areas after their projects have passed professional review.

“But there will always be a smaller number of high-quality places than of other places,” he said. “They’re being unwise and shortsighted. A system that rewards quality will work to everybody’s advantage over the long run.”