1.Corporations, governments and university administrations are
risking an important role of universities in what we claim to be a
democratic society. The danger is that commercialization will lead
to excessive concentration of power in corporate hands.
The traditional mission of the university is the unqualified pursuit
and dissemination of knowledge and truth.
As publicly funded institutions, universities should serve the broad
public interest NOT private interests. This requires uncompromising standards of intellectual integrity and informed analysis and
refusal to be constrained by “what everybody knows”.
Over the centuries, church, state, and corporations have sought to
command the university. In each case private interests replaced the
public interest. Contributors to “The Corporate campus (ed, Jim
Turk believe there will be grave consequences if corporate power is
used to enhance the social, political and commercial power of large
corporations.
2.Commercialization and its forms
A. marketing sites
Coke and Pepsi exclusivity deals. Arguably these flout The
Competition Act by reducing competition.
U of L. has such a deal as do many universities in North America.
McGill University voted against the exclusivity deal against will of
admin and their student association.
Computers. Universities are marketing sites for information
technology. Little evidence of success.
Sports goods
B Corporate Language.
Clients, customers, products, service providers, evaluation as quality
control.
Intellectual growth not customer satisfaction is the hallmark of
success.
Should be partnership not customer/client/service provider.
C User pay
Public interest is well-educated citizenry.
Universities seek private donors. Growing dependence.
Tuition fees replace public funding.
Family income determines access to universities.
D. Control of labour process
How to replace artisan labour by centralized management.
Industrial Revolution brought efficiency of production. Also
contributed to managerial control of the workplace.
This is present in today’s universities where management seeks to
undermine collegial governance, which is less efficient than
managerial control.
Charles Babbage and Fred Taylor introduced scientific
management. The deskilling of work. Use of information technology.
Attempts are made at standardized curriculum.
Separating teaching from research.
Serving private interests
Robert Wilson Nepean chamber of Commerce 1997
“Business is the prime user of the ‘product’ of education – or the
lack thereof, of the graduates. It has an inherent right, as any
investor, to determine the return on its investment. And the right to
determine the cost of the infrastructure that creates the return”.
As governments cut funding, educational institutions need
increasingly to rely more heavily on corporate funding.
U of T Joseph Rotman Foundation $15 m Management; Peter Munk
of Barrick Gold and Horsham corporations $6.4 m (Internat);
Nortel ($8m)
Government research frequently requires partners to attract
government money. Amounts to veto power over what research is
publicly funded. Expert Panel on the Commercialization of
Research – Public Investment in University Research 1999.
Advocated commercialization become part of university’s central
missions. 1400+ scientists/researchers responded “important
research questions that lack the promise of short-term commercial
profitswould be marginalized and scientistswould be perceived as
beholden to special interests”.
Nobel Laureate John Polanyi “At a certain level, we don’t have
universities any more, but outlying branches of industry. Then all
the things industry turns to universities for – breadth of knowledge,
far time horizons, and independent voice – are lost.
Commercial funding shapes what gets studied. Basic research,
groundwork for all advances, gets less attention because of few
prospects of a short term return.
Many examples of commercial deals with universities.
See “Academic Freedom or Commercial License” by William
Graham. In Dec. 1996 at the U of T a commercial agreement passed
through various governing bodies. Objected to by Faculty Assoc.,
individual faculty including Dean of Medicine and the SU
newspaper The Varsity.
Rotman donation $15 m for school of mgt. University provided
matching funds for endowed chairs.
“Vision” required
“the unqualified support for and commitment to the principles and
values underlying the vision by members of the faculty of management
as well as the central administration…and upon the continuing
ongoing support demonstrated by the members of faculty”.
This violated the U of T’s commitment to academic freedom. (1992).
Within the unique U context, the most crucial of all human rights are
the rights of freedom of speech, academic freedom and freedom of
research. And we affirm that these rights are meaningless unless they
entail the right to raise deeply disturbing questions and provocative
challenges to the cherished beliefs of society at large and of the
university itself. It is this human right to radical, critical teaching and
research with which the university has a duty above all to be
concerned; for there is no one else, no other institution and no other
office, in our modern liberal democracy, which is the custodian of this
most precious and vulnerable right of the liberated human spirit.
The acting provost noted that the gift required changes in university
policy that is sacrificing AF for the vision. The agreement allowed
the donor to withdraw funds, including matching funds of the U, if
dissatisfied with progress toward “the vision”. The agreement
allowed for an external advisory committee of six business people to
be consulted by all faculty appointment committees.
See also PeterMunk of Horsham and Barrick Gold. No protection of
AF and commitment by U to spend future resources. $6.4M
Nortel deal $8M did not protect AF. 1997. Tenure track
appointments do be done in consultation with Nortel. Also a secret
clause on patent rights never revealed.
None of the agreements were disclosed by U admin to own academic
boards in spite of the impact on academic issues such as teaching,
research and academic freedom. The greatest academic scandal of
our time.
Trials for L1 deferiprone. Detoxify metal ions.
Commercial research increases secrecy, confidentiality. Less
accessible to the public. Privatization of research partly publicly
funded.
Nancy Olivieri, When Money and Truth Collide.
A company along with two public institutions tried to suppress
scientific debate. U of T and Hosp for Sick Children. Apotex.
Olivieri signed a confidentiality clause.
Problems.
She informed patients in spite of all legal remedies.
Toronto trials ended and Olivieri was removed from Italian trials.
She was replaced by compliant investigators.
Deregulated drug approvals were made at Health Canada.
Evidence 40-60% of patients receiving L1 have iron levels associated
with early death. Olivieri found the drug is ineffective and unsafe in
more than half patients. Premature death for kids and young adults
for whom there is already a proven safe effective treatment.
1996 after informing Sick Children’s Hospital and U of T of
dangers, they sided with Apotex. U of T was negotiating a $25M
donation from Apotex. U of T president Robert Prichard lobbied
Prime Minister Chretien to relax restrictions on generic drug firms
– including Apotex.
This was leaked to press and Prichard made an apology
U of T sustained a loss of $20M from Apotex which withdrew the
bulk of the promised funding.
Findings were published – given to patients, regulators and New
England Journal of Medicine.
Hospital frequently tried to dismiss Olivieri. Faculty Association
defended her against the U of T. CAUT created independent
investigators panel who emphatically supported O’s actions.
University and hospital also did but there remained an issue of
academic freedom. Also, scientific integrity and safety of children in
trials was not resolved.
PRESSURES OF DECREASED PUBLIC FUNDING
ALSO PROBLEM OF CONFIDENTIALITY CLAUSES IN
CONTRACTS
Against public policy.
Dean of Law Dan Soberman of Queens stated.
At common law contractual clause is void if against public policy.
Where it prohibits disclosure of a researcher’s reasonable belief of
harm to a patient, the clause is void.
Err on side of caution Nuremberg Code, Helsinki Agreement,
Hippocratic Oath, Common Law all attest to this.
O found 36% patients exceeded iron build up. Critics found in their
trials 50% excess build up and considered this favourable. Many if
not most take the company line.
Reduced public funding has forced researchers into accepting
funding from the industry. Company terms, issues. Faculty have an
equity interest in the companies.
Ursula Franklin. The U is a production site.
Regulatory agencies
Health Protection Branch of HC is deregulated. Purchase of blood
products from Arkansas prisons. Refused by China and Burma
accepted by Canada. Hep C.
Concerns by Olivieri and brittenham. Winked to VP of Apotex.
Drug Companies are our friends.
Olivieri’s objections – too controversial. HC did meet. O had to
prove drug toxic but HC has to prove it is safe.
Universities don’t protect researchers.
David KERN BROWN U Interstitial lung disease in Microfibers
factory. He had signed reveal no secrets clause. Threatened and
dismissed from Brown
DONG COMPARED TWO DRUGS. FOUND EQUAL.
THREATENED WITH LAW SUIT. FORCED TO WITHDRAW
ARTICLE FROM JAMA. LATER PUBLISHED.
Deny delay divide discredit.
Paul Berg Nobel Prize winner laid ground for splicing DNA to make
hybrid molecules. This discovery propelled a billion $ industry.
Ironically Berg said the biotech revolution would not have happened
had things been left to industry. Venture capital steered clear of
anything that didn’t have ST impact or profit. They didn’t fund the
research necessary to make biotech possible.
Little corporate interest in fields such as child poverty, causes of
diseases among poor in 3rd world countries; the History of Western
Canadian populism or the antecedents of Shakespeare’s tragedies.
Commercial funders can impose conditions on researchers such as
keeping findings secret, turning over patents or data to the funder.
See Olivieri. When Money and Truth CollideStelfox, Chua,
O’Rourke and Detsky, Conflict of Interest Over Calcium Channel
Antagonists” NE J of Med 338 (1998) 101-106. Treatment for
hypertension. Of those who found medication safe 96% had
financial relnship with manufs. Much more than those neutral or
critical of the use.
Countering Commercialism
How to serve the public interest free from commercial pressures
that are dominating society?
1. Change notion of education from making widgets, serving
clients. No products.
Only co-participants – partners. Learning process. Learning as a
collective activity. Introducing students to culture of the discipline
and to fact accumulation.
2. Don’t judge education on superficial measurable or
satisfaction ratings but on how well it prepares an informed,
active and socially conscious citizenry productive in all aspects
of their lives.
See George Martell. The Politics of Canadian Public Schools
3. Defend autonomy and integrity of universities where search for
knowledge and truth is paramount. Society obtains analysis of
programs, products policies etc. through research and open
debate. Foundations for a just, democratic, egalitarian,
humane society.
Education must serve a broader public interest than corporate
profits.