In defense of funding
Research grants from defense companies not a problem
By: Editorial Board
Issue date: 3/27/08 Section: Opinion
UNC and the Department of Defense had better take notice.
In keeping with the tradition of pointless political stunts that effect no real change, the UNC Students for a Democratic Society is investigating the relationship of the two entities.
We think it's a silly and unnecessary move. An unbiased investigation might provide marginally important information about some small projects, but we highly doubt that this will be an unbiased investigation.
A new group, the UNC Coalition Against the War, is tagging along with SDS on this little adventure.
The two student groups are planning to investigate the links between the government agencies and the University before mobilizing in the fall.
But UNC doesn't actually do very much research for the department or the military.
The defense funding that the University receives is largely made up of grants for which individual professors applied, and professors' freedom to seek funding from any group they see fit is not a question of ethics, but of intellectual freedom.
Additionally, this is unlike other cases where the University has cut financial ties to avoid contributing to violence around the world. There isn't a clear campus consensus about the merits of the war, unlike the universal condemnation of the events in Darfur or South Africa under Apartheid.
Plus, boycotting these sources of funding would hurt the University without doing the government any significant harm, as the department would simply find another university willing to do the research.
While there's nothing inherently wrong with an investigation, the information isn't really all that tough to find or all that scandalous.
The defense department and all other defense-related groups sponsored less than $11 million of research, which is about 1.8 percent of all the sponsored research UNC conducted.
The vast majority of the projects in question are more technical than martial.
SDS should check out research.unc.edu, where anyone can figure out how much different groups spent for research.
We fail to see how looking at how to create better virtual reality simulators is an evil plot to assassinate Iraqi civilians.
We think that SDS and this new coalition could be useful, though, if they'd give it a shot.
Instead, they should publicize different presidential candidates' stances on the war, work to help displaced Iraqis or try to compile or find quantitative research on student opinion of the war.
In keeping with the tradition of pointless political stunts that effect no real change, the UNC Students for a Democratic Society is investigating the relationship of the two entities.
We think it's a silly and unnecessary move. An unbiased investigation might provide marginally important information about some small projects, but we highly doubt that this will be an unbiased investigation.
A new group, the UNC Coalition Against the War, is tagging along with SDS on this little adventure.
The two student groups are planning to investigate the links between the government agencies and the University before mobilizing in the fall.
But UNC doesn't actually do very much research for the department or the military.
The defense funding that the University receives is largely made up of grants for which individual professors applied, and professors' freedom to seek funding from any group they see fit is not a question of ethics, but of intellectual freedom.
Additionally, this is unlike other cases where the University has cut financial ties to avoid contributing to violence around the world. There isn't a clear campus consensus about the merits of the war, unlike the universal condemnation of the events in Darfur or South Africa under Apartheid.
Plus, boycotting these sources of funding would hurt the University without doing the government any significant harm, as the department would simply find another university willing to do the research.
While there's nothing inherently wrong with an investigation, the information isn't really all that tough to find or all that scandalous.
The defense department and all other defense-related groups sponsored less than $11 million of research, which is about 1.8 percent of all the sponsored research UNC conducted.
The vast majority of the projects in question are more technical than martial.
SDS should check out research.unc.edu, where anyone can figure out how much different groups spent for research.
We fail to see how looking at how to create better virtual reality simulators is an evil plot to assassinate Iraqi civilians.
We think that SDS and this new coalition could be useful, though, if they'd give it a shot.
Instead, they should publicize different presidential candidates' stances on the war, work to help displaced Iraqis or try to compile or find quantitative research on student opinion of the war.
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