Paul Roberts and Stanford

I take serious objection to the Op-Ed article by Paul Craig Roberts (Aug. 15) which attacks Stanford University.

I am a graduate of Stanford (undergraduate economics), and a member of the Board of Overseers of the Hoover Institution. I am a life-long Republican.

Having served as a Hoover overseer for four years, I would characterize the mood of our board as extremely hopeful and positive, looking forward while acknowledging that serious errors of tact and judgment have been committed by both Hoover and Stanford in recent years.

(Hoover Director) Glenn Campbell will always be a hero at Hoover. It is also in keeping with the philosophy of those other great members of the Stanford family, John Gardner and Ernie Arbuckle, to acknowledge that periodic change is healthy, both institutionally and individually.

With respect to the Reagan Library, it was accepted unanimously by the Stanford trustees. While there was considerable debate, the faculty senate did not turn down the Reagan Library. I would suggest that Glenn Campbell’s heroic impatience had as much to do with its demise at Stanford as any other single entity.

Labeling the Stanford faculty leftist--”there was no place for moderates or reason . . . . either you hated America or were a war criminal”--is more revealing of the character of Paul Craig Roberts than of the Stanford faculty. Michael Boskin, Hoover Fellow, senior faculty in economics and currently chairman of President Bush’s Council of Economic Advisors, as well as David Brady, Hoover Fellow, senior faculty in political science and Stanford Business School, are but two examples of the caliber of faculty slurred by Roberts’ comments.

Roberts goes on to criticize Stanford’s budgeting process. Deficits are planned for in the current university budget in order to absorb the extraordinary expense of raising $1.1 billion in the Centennial Campaign without curtailing the ongoing educational and research programs.

As to the Centennial Campaign, Roberts asserts, “Stanford’s fund-raising efforts were running behind the weak performance of last year.” Last year’s “weak performance,” $181.9 million, was No. 1 among private universities in the United States and well ahead of Harvard for first place nationally. It was the first billion-dollar campaign ever announced by a university. It has survived the stock market crash, higher capital gains rates and even Paul Craig Roberts.

Hoover and Stanford are two institutions which have contributed greatly to the West and to the world at large. They will each contribute greatly in the future, and they are worthy of our support. What such worthy institutions need and deserve are individuals who are willing to live with their imperfections and work to make them better. Roberts’ laundry list of hackneyed, provocative and unproven charges represents hide-bound negative conservatism at its worst.

BOWEN H. (BUZZ) MC COY

Los Angeles