ANN ARBOR—The Academic Freedom Lecture Fund at the University of Michigan has received a $50,000 grant from the W.K. Kellogg Foundation to support a major conference in 2000 that will be part of the 10th anniversary celebration of the U-M’s Annual Davis, Markert, Nickerson Lecture on Academic and Intellectual Freedom.

The annual public lecture was established in 1990 by the Senate Assembly, the elected governing body of U-M faculty, as a reminder to the academic community of the need for continuous vigilance to protect academic and intellectual freedom. It honors three faculty members who in 1954 were called to testify before a Congressional Committee on Un-American Activities. All invoked constitutional rights and refused to answer questions about their political associations. The three were suspended from the University. Markert was subsequently reinstated and Davis and Nickerson were dismissed.

The Academic Freedom Lecture Fund also was created in 1990 as an independent, nonprofit organization to assure continuing support for the lecture and related activities.

The 2000 conference in Ann Arbor will bring together leading First Amendment scholars from all over the country to discuss some of the most pressing communication problems of the times. Sponsors say one objective of the conference is to develop a model format for conducting a reasoned public dialogue about such vital issues as race, crime, poverty and the environment. The overall theme focuses on balancing the right of free speech on such sensitive subjects against the need for more responsible speech.

The conference also will address “the current tendency to distort otherwise respectable scientific research through so-called ‘junk science.'” Junk science is defined as the “corruption of science by application or commercialization for non-scientific purposes—the skewing of research results to support the publicized claims of a product, for instance.”

The W.K. Kellogg Foundation was established in 1930 to “help people help themselves through the practical application of knowledge and resources to improve their quality of life and that of future generations.”

Its programming activities center around “the common visions of a world in which each person has a sense of worth; accepts responsibility for self, family, community and societal well-being; and has the capacity to be productive; and to help create nurturing families, responsive institutions and healthy communities.”

To achieve the greatest impact, the foundation targets its grants toward specific focal points or areas, including health; food systems and rural development; youth and education and higher education; and philanthropy and volunteerism. Funding also is provided for leadership; information systems/technology; efforts to capitalize on diversity; and family, neighborhood and community development programming. Grants are concentrated in the United States, Latin America, the Caribbean and southern Africa.