they make towards the american way of life and the world for that matter. ariana has just noted the new provost at columbia having begun my term on september 1st of this year. i have known in jonathan for a good while now. he was a member of the board of trustees of the center that i just recently directed for behavioral sciences at stanford. and for all these reasons, i allowed myself to think that may be on the first day i arrived on my job i might open my top desk drawer and there would be a letter from jonathan -- [laughter] telling me how to be a good provost and with the challenges of the job were and how to go about them and how to think about them and how to frame the issues that are central in higher education today.

i expected a brief letter and what i found what some 600 page book. [laughter] i can't tell you how grateful i am for that book. i consider it a great service to higher education. it's a letter in the top desk drawer of all of us who care about higher education in america research universities and is a service to the broad society as well in the sense of reminding it for me be informing for the first time in many instances of the value of these institutions of their indispensability in our lives. even a quick glance at the book will reveal the immense amount of labor and skill and fault and life experience that has gone into eight. i don't know of another book quite like it nor one that seems so well timed to particular time. it will create a certain moment

or contribute a moment in which as i said a second ago we can reflect on the role of the higher education in the modern research university in american society, a moment that renews the motivation to preserve and further develop the things about these institutions that make them so important. the book helps create this moment i think in several ways. first it gives an overview history of the modern research american research universities society. as a combination of the british idea of an undergraduate college and a german idea of the research focused graduate school. in describing the emergence of this unique hybrid jonathan reveals the unique nature of these institutions in history and why they become the model for the world. next the book offers the best compendium of the achievements of these institutions that on no

wealth. a compelling description of the contributions these institutions have made to society and the huge role they play in a national system of innovation. i will be referring to this section of the book for years when i need a concrete and illustration of the research universities make to society. last the book addresses the value system that sustains these institutions, freedom for expression and thought that has made them so effective and the threats to the value system that has arisen in the broader american society. so you can see from this listing that this is -- this book is no passing discussion of the modern research university. it is both a comprehensive and deep. it is as near these institutions as he will ever find between the covers of a single book i believe. and here to discuss this book we have an extraordinarily distinguished panel of,

interests to might be read the schedule for the evening will be that john thune will make remarks for 40, 45 minutes or so and then each of the panelists will also be given about 20 minutes to make remarks and that will be followed by questions from the audience and there are two microphones you can see waiting for you. to give you a sense with panelists are and thus some of the perspectives i represent this evening i thought i would introduce them now at this point in the program and that would avoid me having to get up and down introducing each individually. the first, enter will be geoffrey stone who was himself a long time provost at the university of chicago from 1993 to 2003. after receiving his degree from university of chicago 1971 and working among others for justice william brennan of the u.s. supreme court, geoff has been on

the faculty of law school of the university chicago ever since. and in the time since he has served -- and his time at chicago he served both as the dean of the law school for a good period, five for six years and provost for ten years. so this will bring his own great experience to this discussion. he teaches rights primero the in the area of constitutional law and he has written numerous distinguished books many of which have gathered an impressive number of awards. he's currently editing a 15 volume series entitled " inalienable rights." you'll have to pronounce that when you get up here. including chapters by the luminaries of political philosophy and history. a past book that is relevant to tonight's discussion is internally vigilant free-speech in the modern era. geoff is a member of the academy

of arts and sciences and numerous boards focused on civil liberties and the constitution. our second call center will be matthew goldstein, who is currently the chancellor of the city university of new york, his all modern. dr. col d'aspin served in many academic senior administrative positions over the years as the president of the college and university he has held faculty positions as well as others and his scholarship is in the area of statistics, a field of which he has published a number of major textbooks and other writings. he too was a member of the american to become academy of arts and sciences and is the recipient of the longest distinguished list of prizes and awards. he will bring a wealth of leadership experience to the discussion tonight. finally the last speaker of the evening will be richard axel of colombia's most distinguished faculty members. he is currently a university

professor of biochemistry and molecular biophysics and pathology at the columbia university college of physicians and surgeons. i don't know everyone at columbia danjac the only person i know who rivals richard for having been here having the longest association i should say with columbia university is jonathan himself [laughter] i believe richard sky you're was interrupted by time in med school with john hopkins but otherwise has been here throughout the duration of his time and college and career. besides being at columbia, richard dustin a few other impressive things along the way. one major thrust of his work as i'm sure many of you know has been in clarifying how the old factory system works. our sense of smell has remained one of the most enigmatic senses and his work in this area along with his collaborator, linda, provide a basic understanding of this system and achievement for which he and the doctor were

awarded the 2004 nobel prize for physiology and medicine. richard is also a member of the national academy of sciences, the american economy to be to academy and the association. that concludes the introduction for the commentators for the panel, now let me turn to the nature -- no, i have to introduce you, jonathan. you can stay seated. jonathan is currently the john mitchell mason professor of the university and provost and dean of faculties emeritus at columbia university. he was provost and dean of faculty for 14 years. the second longest term i think in that position as columbia history and yet even at this early stage i can appreciate that achievement. before that he served as director for the center of

social sciences from 1979 to 1987 and he has been vice president of the arts and sciences as well. he enjoys the status of having spent as i said earlier his entire post secondary life i think at columbia university having begun as a freshman by my count in 1960. so he has a number of, an awful lot of scholarly work most of it focused on the development of the sociology of science as a research specialty and he has been published, this work has been published in a large number of outlets. in recent years, his scholarly attention turned to issues on higher education particularly focusing on problems facing the great research universities. i could go on but i needn't anymore. so i will just turn this over to jonathan. thank you.

[applause] >> thank you very much, and i want to thank the people who have come to participate in this panel. it's generous of them to spend time not only taking a look at the book but to share with me the possibilities of discussing this topic further. so geoff and richard it to wells is there, matthew, it's great to have you. thanks very much. as claude said i spent my entire life of columbia university, my adult life any way. coming in 1960. and it's this experience is that grew out of being a student here, faculty member here, and then as an administrator here which led me to not only meet a great number of people who were leaders in american

universities, faculty members who were producing the kind of knowledge they speak about in this book and the people transmit knowledge through extraordinary teaching and it is all that come by and -- combined to believe could lead me to write this book. it's written to reach the educated public, the graduates of the stanford columbia berkeley universities of michigan. universities and colleges of the united states and hopefully those are not the world as well. some say i beat columbia blue and they are probably right but i hope that i have in the book large perspective to be able to create a landscape if you will for the american university system. let me begin in trying to describe this big book. it is a big and thick book with

a vignette. it's taken from the beginning of the book and i will quote it and then i will try to introduce the other sections of the book to you. let me begin. she stepped onto the stage before 150 of the nation's leading scholars and scientists to describe her biological research and discoveries. moving with controlled animation, bonnie statue was woman with a back -- lack pantsuit and a catholic smile began describing her path breaking work, the subject was small talk cell to cell communication bacteria. over the next 20 minutes the professor entranced this by eckert and acutely analytical audience of the prestigious american philosophical society with stories of the molecular mechanisms that bacteria use for

the intercellular communication. standing under a portrait of benjamin franklin, the founder of the society, she recounted her quest to understand the chemical mechanisms that allows these tiny bacteria, which would be impotent acting alone, to detect multiple environmental choose and use a process called quorum sensing that allows them to function as multicellular organisms. acting together the bacteria gained the power and potency to organize collective activity possibly to strategize and assault the disease. accusing the quorum sensing the bacteria are able to count themselves and after reaching a high number they launch their attacks simultaneously. that we the bacteria have a better chance of overpowering the immune system.

she has demonstrated this form of chemical communication can be found in some of the world's most very microbes including those that cause cholera and plague. working with students around the world shoestring science at a high level let her laboratory at princeton university. as well as collaborating with others of america's great universities. but she has also embraced the idea held by franklin of doing science in order to create useful knowledge. the bacterial disease that bassler studies have special relevance for the biological defense against bioterrorism. since many of the pathogens she studies are among those experts believe by a terrorist's would try to use. she works for the goal of developing molecules that will have potential use as antimicrobe real drugs and bacteria that can cause lethal disease such as anthrax.

she wants to find a way to stop the bacteria from talking. now, bassler is just one of the many extraordinary gifted people found in the laboratories and classrooms of america's great universities. like then she's the production of the greatest system of higher learning the world has ever known in her work build on past achievements of these academies to advance our understanding and well-being even more. what she and others are doing is transforming american society, developing knowledge that helps generate new industries to improve public health and create higher standards of living for america, americans and people throughout the world. these kinds of people exist of course in other countries but they seem to exist in abundance today america's greatest universities. now what is the evidence in fact that the united states dominates this set of the greatest institutions of higher learning

in the world? .. you will see that we account for about 80% of the top 20 universities in the world. 75% of the top 50. and 60% of the top 100. we also by other educators after the second world war have dominated the received nobel prizes. having earned probably somewhere in the neighborhood of 60% of all nobel prizes since the war. and if you look at the literature in the sciences and other fields, almost all fields in fact, you will find the most highly referenced papers, the ones with the greatest impact are generally produced by americans. at least we dominate in many fields the production of verifiably important papers. i want to alert you to the fact that today not one german university is among the top 50. not one russian university is

among the top 75. there's not one chinese university by their own reckoning that's among the top 200. now, interestingly enough, when most people -- when we think about great universities, our own great universities, we don't think that lasers, fm radio, magnetic resonance imaging, global positioning systems, the barcode, transistors, improve weather forecasting, cures for childhood leukemia, the pap smear, messages for surveying public opinion and many others, for example, the algorithm for google. the discovery of radar. dna fingerprinting, fetal monitoring the nicotine patch. the heimlich maneuver discovered at cornell. we don't think of these as having their origins at the great american universities.

most people and the educated public think these universities and think of them in terms of their ability to transmit knowledge to undergraduates and it's part of professional education. in terms of teaching, and this transmission of knowledge, rather than the creation of new knowledge and how teaching and research ought coupled at that moment of the research enterprise. now, this is a big book as i say. and it's about higher education. and it tries to tell the story of how our system of higher education became the greatest in the world in producing this kind of great knowledge. how that knowledge through discoveries, inventions, devices, medical miracles have shaped our lives and the way we think. and why these excellence need to be protected against current threats of their preeminence. it's a big subject. a thick book. but the central messages, the

central themes of the book can be summarized fairly simply. let me do that and then i'll elaborate somewhat on them in the time that remains. first of all, we tend not to think of this as a young system. but, in fact, the american research university is relatively young. and highly embedded in the larger american society. after all, the first research university was founded 100 years after the signing of the declaration of independence in 1876. in the form of johns hopkins. and the research university doesn't really get going until the beginning of the 20th century. in the next three decades, by the 1930s, the core values of this system were put in place. the essential values in which the system was built and without which its greatness could not have been achieved. the structures were in turn built on those value systems.

and they would be built in a way that would express themselves in the ability for us to have unmatched discoveries coming from these institutions. the take-off itself does not really begin until -- at least i date it january 1933. and it doesn't reach its full speed until after the second world war and i'll come back to that moment in time. it also benefited enormously by perhaps the tipping point in which the united states government became deeply involved in scientific research after the second world war. and its choice to use taxpayer dollars to fund research in a way that had not been done before. and on the scale that had not been done before. it's not that the government hadn't been involved in research universities. they had begun to get very

involved even during the civil war when the moral act that created land grant institutions in 1862 -- in the middle of that civil war was nonetheless passed by the administration of abraham lincoln. but it didn't really reach full throttle until after the second world war. and what makes them truly the best in the world is not at the end of the day the quality of the undergraduate education there. but the research discoveries, inventions, innovations, et cetera that have been coming out of these universities for some time. now, what's extraordinary to me is that this story has not really been told by the leaders of american higher learning over the years. and i consider it a personal failure until i wrote this book, of course, of of not trying to communicate to the broader public what it is about these universities that make them in their entirety quite extraordinary.

and i don't want to -- i don't want to under estimate the importance of under graduate education or the transmission of knowledge, but it is not that which differentiates us greatly from those types of education that you can find abroad or in the great liberal arts colleges perhaps in the united states. when i talk to alums at columbia, and i talk to many of them over the years, they would ask questions, very intelligent questions, about how is the university doing? and particularly focusing on how is the columbia core college curriculum doing? are we maintaining the integrity of the curriculum? i was struck by how infrequent, almost never, i came across the following kind of questions from one of these alums. one of the great discoveries that have been made at columbia over the last five years, what discoveries are changing our

lives in important ways? they were questions that weren't asked. in some sense we hadn't educated them to ask those questions. so we had the right values and we built the right structures on those values. we also had exceptionally talented people brought into the system from wherever they might be found. we had enlightened and bold leadership from the inception of the research university, from gillman on to the current day. we had a deep commitment to the idea of free inquiry and the autonomy of the university, the research university, from the state. and that differentiates us from many other countries. european countries that generally have state controlled universities. there's little autonomy in the research mission from the state. and also in many other countries, does not fully recognize the importance of free inquiry and academic freedom.

and then we've had unprecedented vast resources put into the system to enable us to build excellence, resources that went far beyond what european nations could do after the war when they were trying to recover from the war. and far beyond what asian nations were able to do until very recently. so what were some of the factors that contributed to the evolving idea of the american university? and there are a few. first of all, until the turn of the century, these were small colleges, basically, now harvard, yale, princeton and the privates, as well as some of the publics, were relatively small, focusing on under graduate education when, interestingly enough, when daniel foyt gilman began to raid harvard of some of its best faculty, it sort of woke up charles elliott to the idea that maybe we have to

compete with hopkins for talent. and he had said about the incorporation of the german model into the american model by hopkins. he said it would fit harvard freshmen about as well as a barnyard would suit a whale. well, he soon changed and became highly competitive in the world of research universities. it was a growing belief in science and technology, the federal government, as i say, became involved. it was a tremendous competitive spirit that exited at the time and then was carried over into the universities themselves. if you look at the university of chicago, it was founded in 1892. and you look at william rainy harper, the first president of that university. he was immediately taking rockefeller's money and trying to recruit the best of the talent that was available elsewhere. and he was very successful at doing it and very rapidly

catapulted chicago into one of the great universities in the world. the model itself was a hybrid. it came from an amalgom of the deep interest in the research activities of the german universities in the 19th century, and early part of the 20th century. and the under graduate model of the colleges at oxford and cambridge, we put our special stamp on this and we transformed it in interesting ways. for example, much more democratic than our laboratories, the germans who came over and worked here were struck by the fact that students, graduate students, would actually talk to their professors and use their first names. and even talking to them was something which hadn't necessarily been done.

now, let me talk very briefly about those values that i said are essential for great universities. and there are 12 that i talk about in the book and go on in some detail. many of them come from science and the development of science. and have their origins in 17th century science. my teacher robert murton elaborates on it in many of his works. just to give you a sense of some of the core values that are essential, without which i don't believe you can have greatness. one is the idea to universalism. that is to say, people are judged on the quality of their mind, quality of their ideas, not on their statuses, their ascribed status, not by where they were born into, but what their achieve mnts and their possibilities were. there was the value of organized skepticism which insisted that we question any claims to fact and truth and demand evidence be

put forward in order to sustain claims to truth and fact. it was very heavy value now placed on the creation of new knowledge. there was the open and communication ideas, that there would not be borders that could not be permeated within the academic community among and between universities. there was the norm and value of free inquiry and academic freedom. there was the notion that these institutions were fundamentally international, that there were no scholarships, restricted by borders. that with the idea that the pure abuse system. the idea that, essentially, people would be judged others work had to be experts in the field. they had to be knowledgeable in the field. those were the people that would establish the criteria of excellence and would judge their peers as to hiring, promotion and the like. and remember, even in the early part of the 20th century there

was enormous power that existed in the hands of presidents to do this. and in fact it was elliott himself who said, god bless the rise of disciplines and of peers so that they could help him judge the quality of the people he was hiring and promoting in places like harvard. there was a great set of bold leaders and there was also a sense of you governed increasingly by authority, the rule of governing raer than by sheer power. there was a commitment to the common good. that is, after all, what a lot of the research is designed to do, to produce common good. some of it has intrinsic value and is very, very fundamental. sometimes, as we'll see, it's not clear that things which seem to be fundamental value downstream have enormous practical implications. the laser is one example of that. which was, when it was first

discovered, by charles towns in the physics department at columbia later transformed into the laser, but it was described by towns himself as a discovery in search of applications. well, we found a few applications for the laser and it's affected all of our lives. now, i mentioned earlier, and i want to come back to it, that a tipping point was probably january, 1933. and why? as many of us know, january 1933 was the month that hitler came to power, fdr became president of the united states, took the oath of office, and james conan would like us to think it was also the moment when he became president of harvard. i think he's been somewhat forgotten about. in any event, you have to recognize germany, in the first three decades of the 20th

century, dominated the production of knowledge. they dominated the receipt of nobel prizes. it was a powerhouse that americans, scientists, scholars envied. we traveled to germany and to austria and places like that in order to try to soak up what they had to offer us. eventually what they gave us were great leaders. i'll come back to that. the fact of the matter is, professors of the great universities of berlin were purged very quickly. and they were purged on ideological grounds. the point is that the basis on which the purging was done was on the basis of religion, on the basis of extreme characteristics having nothing to do with the quality of their work. once that purging took place, 50% of the community in germany left and they emigrated. they emigrated to england and they emigrated to the united states, who was the great intellectual migration of the

early '30s and actually right throughout the '30s. and they were placed in american universities. at one point he said, you know, we have the core, from the best community in the world here, but we're young. and what we are in need of is leaders. and what was imported in effect were the leaders who could be placed at these universities and work with these young people to create the greatest physics community in the world. and that was done. so in some sense, some ironic sense, the great tragedy of europe, the unbelievable tragedy of europe, led to in ab unanticipated way, the further ascendants of the american reseveral university. and great people came. einstein, of course, they offered vibrancy and an extraordinary combination was

created between those who were here and those who came. now, i also suggested that one of the critical moments was the production of the science policy, very precious science policy that came into being after the war. here's how it came in. i don't know how many of you have ever heard of the name vanover bush. i doubt too many younger people have heard of vanover bush. no related to the bushes of recent times, by the way. but he was an extraordinary engineer. at the time he mobilized the war effort among the intellectuals and scholars and scientists in the united states. he was in charge of it. he was the person who was sort of organized a great deal of the manhattan project and other projects like the efforts developing radar at the rad lab and mit and a whole host of other things. he was on the cover of "life" magazine. well, after the war was over, and clearly the science might

not have won the second world war for the united states, but it certainly contributed largely to the victory. he went to see president roosevelt, whom he was very close to. roosevelt asked him, what's gonna happen now that all these scientists are going back to the universitys? what's going happen to our position, particularly interested in our military superiority. bush said it's going to be a disaster unless we do something. so roosevelt said, well go do something. and what was created out of that go do something was one of the most extraordinary science policy documents that have ever come into being called science, the endless frontier, authored by a set of committees but really by vanover bush. and what were the elements of that, that made it so important? first of all, what bush wanted to do was to use taxpayer money. he knew that while foundations could offer assistance in growing research, there was nothing like the public cofferes

and especially the federal dollars that could potentially really bill science, technology and other areas in the growth of knowledge. and so, he wanted to use this. and that was extremely important. he wanted to establish a national research foundation and was independent of government or quasiindependent of government. he failed on that. congress wouldn't let him do it. eventually that more -- morphed into the science foundation. he wanted to outsource research. in short, he didn't want to take the route european nations had gone, basically to control the research by creating government supported institutes, government controlled institutes. he said, let's run the money through the universities, outsource this funding and do it on a competitive basis that would be guided by the peer review system. that's precisely what was done.

that is the best quality proposals would get funding. the creation of the reorganization, the nih and the creation of the nsf and the very, very rapid rise in their budgets were instrumental in the growth of these universities because the money was coming to the universities research. there was another element to it, which was critically important. he believed in linking teaching and research especially at the grass root level. in fact, we know today that doctoral students, post doctoral students, they collaborate with principal investigators and they are instrumental in many of the most important discoveries that are made. so it's not as if we're divorcing teaching and research or the transmission of knowledge. we're, in fact, coupling it in the american system, making it far tighter, in fact, than it was in the european system, where research takes place in institutions like cnrs, tends to get decoupled from the university system itself.

okay. the legislation was passed. i'm going to spend less time because i want to get on to the threats to the university, on some of the great leaders that have been extremely important. i want to just focus on one. because he was a provost. and by my accounting, the greatest provost in the history of american higher education. that was frederick terman. if i bleed columbia blue, he bled cardinal red. i don't think it was cardinals at the time, but it was cardinal red. he was a lifer at stanford. but he had worked during the year for van overbush. if you think networks weren't operating there at the time, they were. and he got to not only know vanover bush, but he headed the

anti-submarine effort at harvard during the war. he actually ran a group that was numbered in the thousands, larger than the total population of faculty and staff at stanford when he returned to stanford. he went back to the engineering school. he became provost in 1957. and the next decade he transformed with the help of wally sterling, who was very important to the president of stanford at the time. he transformed this from a rather sleepy college, a good sleepy college and good university into a world class institution. and he envisioned the future the way in which very few academic leaders did. i'll contrast him for a maniment with one of our own. what did he see? for example, he saw the opening up, the enormous potential of biological sciences. 57. so just a few years earlier,

they discovered a double structure of dna. and he realized at that point that the combination of basic biological science with medicine was going to be the future. and he and sterling against a great deal of resistance, brought the medical school, which was located in san francisco, down to the stanford campus, began to link the biological sciences and medicine, began to recruit in clusters some of the great minds like josh lederberg from wisconsin to stanford, and he would get them moving and running in a way that was unusual, extraordinary and cost a lot of money. for example, putting up three bilgds at stanford that involved a new medical school involved a capital campaign. the capital campaign had a target of $15 million. we're trying to raise $3

billion, $4 billion, $5 billion here and there. different scale, but not necessarily easy to be done. he had an insistence on quality, absolute insistence on quality. he did very clever things to do it. i always admire him for this clever thing. why didn't i do it? he had friends, and i think he himself at the time was a member of the national academy of sciences. he wanted to include great talent. so what did he do? he looked at the roster of people who had been elected to the academy. he looked at them very carefully. and he passed those by. he looked at the people who had just failed to make it. the youngsteres who he could get cheaply, and the ones who were apt to be members of the academy five years down the road. and he went after them and he recruited them, and he did an extraordinary job in build manage of the disciplines at stanford. and, of course, we know those of us who know this story, he was in many ways the father of

silicon valley. he understood after the war, not on was the government going to invest in universities, but that the externalities from that research effort was going to lead to high tech industries. if they could be located near the university, the economic impact for the region would be absolutely extraordinary. so what did he do? he had mr. hewlitt and mr mr. packard. that's where the first hue lit pack card machine came out of, spun off. he was a visionary. and he was tough. and he believed in quality. and he saw the future. that's the most important thing. he really under we were an adaptive organism, these universities, and he was adapting the organism to the new realities and the new context. i'm gonna contrast him with one of our own. our professor of mine actually.

he is an icon. i use that word very advisedly. i don't like the overuse. everything is iconic today. but jacques borsin is an iconic columbian. he's a great historian. he was provost at the same time basically, but there was something about jacques borsin that had nostalgia, for cardinal newman's university of 1952, the university that would be free of government interference, government control, bureaucratic organization, etc, etc. so borsin very brilliant man, looked backwards and he never saw the future and how columbia would have to upgrade its facilities, expand its facilities, move toward a greater investment in the areas of the government sponsoring. so you saw two different types of people with two very

different results because in many ways, his orientation hurt columbia for a decade or two afterwards. okay. let me shift, because i know that we're going to be short on time, to the third part of the book. but i want to just capsulize almost in the form of giving you titles of the chapter. the second part of the book -- if the first part is the rise to preimnens and how we got to where we are today, the second part is to try to give you a sense in the biological biomedical sciences as well as in the physical sciences and engineering, computer science, as well as the social sciences and humanities, how the discoveries that have come out of these universities, as paul suggested earlier, have transformed our lives in ways that most people in the general public do not know. and it's important that they know that this is the source. we're not developing new industries, but we are producing the basis for the development of

new industries, new ways of using science technology, social science, to produce millions upon millions of jobs. many people don't think the social and behavioral sciences did so. but they did. if you look at the industry that has to do with advertising, public opinion polling, all kinds of large industries, ngos of various kinds, have come out of the work that have been done in social behavioral science. that's the second part of the book. i leave it to you to look at it, and i hope you will. the third part of the book talks about the challenges it faces, looking forward. i want to summarize very briefly, then we'll open it up to questions later. but one thing i want to make sure you understand is that these universities have huge

economic impact. i mean, i mentioned silicon valley. but just think of what stanford university at the moment represents. it reports faculty members, students and alumni founded 24 million companies, reports this in 2008. now, this includes cisco systems, google, hp, and it generated $255 billion of total revenue among the silicon valley 150 in 2008. mit, similarly. it reports that 4,000 mit related companies employ 1.1 million people. by the way, again, there's a multiplier effect of two or three or four times that number of the suppliers and others who feed these companies. and it has these companies have an annual world sale of $232 billion, which is just a little less than the gross domestic product of south africa and of

thailand and which would make mit companies among the 40 largest economies in the world. when the university of california, which i will come back to in a moment, is dismantling its university system, as we speak, it is also dismantling the necessary conditions for economic growth in the area and, in fact, the wealth of their own community. okay. so what are some of the challenges and what are some of the things that we have to be very careful about if we're going to maintain our preeminence? well, i want to begin in some sense by making at least the claim that the source of the challenge is not the one that most people think about, which is the threat that foreign universities will surpass us in a short period of time, the chinese universities, for example, or the japanese universities, the asian universities or those in europe.

the european universities are in total disarray. i mean, extraordinary disarray. the chinese universities have far to go before they can really challenge the american universities. by the way, it's not that this won't happen. and it may well happen in the next 25 years or so, but i don't think it's imminent. i don't think that's the imminent threat. to paraphrase walt kelly's wonderful cartoon character pogo, the fact of the matter is, i believe the enemy is us. and in what ways is the enemy us? well, you can see the way in which anti-terrorism legislation was used and abused in the period between 2001 and quite recently, in fact this legislation is still very much on the books. and whether it's being acted on or not, we don't know. there were huge numbers of immuneologists working on trying to find cures for diseases,

anecdotes, vaccines, etc, who were essentially subjected to fbi searchs or reporting very closely follow work and look, by the way, i want to be very clear. some of these select asians that these laboratories are working with are nasty things. i mean, you want to know where they are. on the other hand, if you prevent a scientist from saying that i want to hire into my laboratory a post doctoral student who happens to come from iran, which there is absolutely not a cent of evidence that there is a security risk, and you can be indicted, criminally indicted if that student steps foot in that laboratory in which there are select asians, then i think we have a problem of government interference with knowledge. and the growth of knowledge. now, there are other important ways in which the government has begun to interfere with the growth of knowledge. one, of course, is restrictive

visa policies, which all of us know about. it's becoming increasingly difficult for people to move freely from their countries to the united states. and if there is one industry in the world in which we actually have a favorable balance of trade, it's higher education. and to the extent that we restrict this for -- without real cause, is really impeding the progress we can make. because we cannot depend on our own talent base in science and technology at this point in time. it's another issue that leaves to one side. there have also been efforts to influence the publication of scientific papers, if you happen to be a foreigner and living in a country which is considered one that we are restricting trade to. there are efforts of course for us to impose ideological positions on the conduct of science. that, perhaps, is most

troubling. the policies which it existed upon growing stem cell lines and embryonic stem cell research. the restrictions that were being made on people as extraordinary as james hanson who works here and for nafta on the speeches that they could make. they were actually had to have the government politicians okay the speeches he would make before he would give it. and he refused. but that became sort of a cause for celebrity. this was going on with the government and with government scientists. the efforts to alter truth and facts about reproductive health and other health issues. the ways in which the cdc altered its website to emphasize abstinence rather than the use of condoms. the ways in which the government tried to infiltrate, if you will, the peer review system,

bringing political appointees into the peer review system. and trying to get rid of extraordinary sciences like elizabeth blackburn who just won the nobel prize from the ethics panel because she disagreed in some ways with the existing policy. okay. i think this is also symptom mat tick of in some sense a deeper set of problems in this country which, of course, arises every once in awhile. that is the politicalization of a tiny bit of intellectualism of a kind that richard hotsteter taught us about a kind of movement toward anti-science which is problematic. the imposition of religious values over scientific values, or at least trying to influence the growth of scientific knowledge on the basis of ideology. remember how ideology, when the

government imposes it, can have devastating effects on universities. now, let me try to conclude this talk, because i think i have gone through my allotted time, if nothing else. and i hope that you will take a look at the book. we have all elaborated on with much greater specificity. i believe that there isn't really good reason why the united states cannot maintain its position among the preimminent research universities in the world. there continues to be ks in fact, in our own bellies, in our own universities, enormous unrealized poen within this system. we should not fear foreign competition. even if the competition exists, it should be good for the growth of knowledge. if we can compete with other nations to find cures for cancer

or different forms of cancer, to discover new genes and new ways of treating patients, and this involves producing knowledge that moves us forward in a whole variety of ways. that's a good thing for the broader system. in fact, we'll probably make our universities still better because they are highly competitive. but there are choices in fact to be made. we're capable of blowing it. and if we follow the path being taken by many states in dealing with their great universities, we may well lose the luster that we have. that's the great test i believe that we face. and it remains an open question whether we'll pass it. thank you. [applause]

>> as claude noted in his introduction, i had the great privilege of serving as provost at the university of chicago for a considerable period of time. one of the real pleasures of that experience was gave me the opportunity to get to know jonathan cole and have a chance to work with him during that time. i used to like telling people after i was in a meeting with onthan that i just came back from a meeting with one of the two best provost in the united states. well enough to know how arrogant i am, right? what i meant by that about jonathan is most of the joke on myself is mostly true. when i became provost, one of my predecessors in chicago said to me that to be a great provost, you must radiate the values of the university. that's true. a provost is chief academic officer of the university, someone who more than anyone

else in the institution has the responsibility and the capacity to inspire colleagues and students to achieve what matters most to the institution. what was always most impressive to me about jonathan was how he radiated the values of the university. by that i don't mean columbia or chicago, but the university. if there was any person that would write this book, it was appropriately jonathan. as jonathan observes in his book "great american university" the protection of ideas from interference or repression is absolutely fundamental to the university. indeed, it is in no small measure our deep commitments to academic freedom that in my view is allowed american universities to be great. it's imperative though that we never take academic freedom for granted. for that freedom of inquiry that we enjoy today in the academy is

the product of centuries of struggle and in the first part of my talk, i will briefly trace the academic freedom. unless we know how we got to where we are today, we may not understand just how unique and potentially fragile our academic freedom really is. and the final part of my talk, i will offer a few thoughts about the challenges of the future. although the struggle for academic freedom can be traced at least as far back as socrates defense of himself against the charge that he corrupted the youth of athens. the modern history of this struggle, as played out in the university context, begins with the advent of universities as we know them today in the 12th century. the social structure of the middle ages, universities were sectors of power and prestige, they were largely autonomous institutions conceived in the spirit of the guilds. their members, whom we today would describe as their faculty,

elected their own officials and set their own rules. there were, however, sharp limits on the scope of scholarly inquiry. there existed a hard core of authority taye tifshly established doctrine which was made obligatory on all skol lars and teachers. it was expected that each knowledge would be consistent with the single system of truth, anchored in dogma. as scholars and teachers gradually became more interested in science, and began to question some of the fundamental preseps of religious doctrine, the conflict between the scientific inquiry an religious authority grew intense. when galileo published its observations, he was listed as a suspect in the secret books of the inquisition, threatened with torture, compelled publicly to disavow his views and ultimately imprisoned for the rest of his life. throughout the 17th century, university life remained largely

bounded by the midevial curriculum. as one statement of events prevailing ideals with the point, the teacher is not to permit any novel opinion to be taught, nor to teach anything contrary to public opinion. this was the general attitude in america, as well as in europe, and freedom of inquiry in america was severely limited by the constraints of religious doctrine, until well into the 19th century. in 1654 harvard's president was forced to resign because he denied scriptural validity of infant baptism. the latter part of the 18th century saw a brief period of relative second que larization as part of the enlightenment. by opening up new fields of study an by introducing a noticed skepticism and inquiry, the trend toward secular learning began to liberate college work. the teacher of science introduced for the first time the discovery rather than the

mere transmission of knowledge into the classroom. but this ship was short lived. for the opening decades of the 19th century brought a significant regression. this was due largely to the rise of religious fundamentalism in the early years of the 19th century. that in turn led to a sharp counter attack against the skepticism of the enlightment and concerted effort on the part of the protestant churches to reassert their control over intellectual life. as a result of this development the american college in the first half of the 19th century once again found himself deeply centered in tradition. it looked to an tigryty for the tools of thought. it was highly authoritarian. its emphasis on mechanical drill and rigid discipline squelched creativity. three factors stifled academic

freedom in this era. first the college teacher was regarded first and foremost as a teacher, because academic honors hinged entirely on teaching, there was no incentive or time for research. indeed it was generally agreed that research was positively harmful to teaching. in 1857 for example tsh trustees of columbia college attributed to then low state of the college to the fact that some of its professors wrote books. second, educators of this era generally regarded the college student as intellectually naive and morally deficient, stamping in with all that phrase implies, was the predominant method. that learning was understood to mean little more than memorization and repettive mechanical drill. third, freedom of inquiry of teaching was smothered by the prevailing theory of moralism which assumed the worth of any idea should be judged by its moral advantages and attitude

that is -- scholarly inquiry. the most important moral problem in america in the first half of the 19th century was, of course, slavier. in both the north and the south, colleges rigidly enforced their own views on this subject. by 1830s the mind of the south had closed completely on the question, when it became known, for example, a professor at the university of north carolina was sympathetic to the 1850s republican presidential candidate, the faculty publicly repudiated his views, the students burned hip and he was discharged by the trustees. the situation in the north was not much better. the president of franklin college was dismissed because he had enforcedolitionist. the fugitive slave law. between 1870 and 1900, there was a genuine revolution in american higher education. dramatic reforms such as

graduate instruction and scientific courses were implemented, and great new universities were established, cornell, hopkins, stanford and chicago. new academic goals were embraced. to criticize and augment as well as preserve the tradition became an accepted function of higher education. this was an extraordinary departure for a system that previously had aimed primarily at cultural conservation. two forces in particular hastened this shift. the first was the impact of darwinism, the second was the influence, as jonathan mentioned, of the german university. by the early 1870s, darwin's theory of revolution was no longer a disputed hypothesis within the american scientific community, but as scientific doubts subsided, religious opposition rose. determined efforts were made to exclude proponents of darwinism whenever possible. and these disputes were often quite bitter. the conflict brought together like-minded teachers,

scientists, scholars and philosophers who believed in evolution and who developed new standards of academic inquiry. in their view to dissent was shot to obstruct, but potentially to enrighten. -- enlighten. the great debate went far beyond whether evolution true, it represented a profound class between conflicting cultures, intellectual styles and academic values, and it pitted the scientific -- the authoritarian against the impairist. in these conflicts science and education joined forces to attack both the principle of moralism and the authority of the clergy. a new approach to education and to intellectual discourse grew out of the darwinian debate. to the evolutionists, all beliefs were verifiable only through a continuous process of inquiry. they held that every claim to

truth must submit to open verification, that the process of verification must follow certain rules, and that this process is best understood by those who qualify as experts. in the attack upon clerical control of universities, the most effective weapon was the contention that the clergy was simply incompetent when it came to science. the result of this attack was the almost complete disappearance of the clergy as a serious academic force. in 1860, 39% of the members of the boards of private colleges were clergymen. by 1900 the percentage had cropped to 23 rt and by 1930, only 7%. the other factor that played a critical role in the transformation of american higher education in the late 19th century was the influence of the german university. the modern conception of a university as a research institution was, in large part, a german contribution. the object of the german

university was the determined, methodical and independent search for truth. such a vision of the research university attracted individuals of outstanding abilities rather than mere med gogs the german system held that this freedom was disstinive prerogative of the academic profession and that it was the essential condition of the university. indeed the single greatest contribution of the german system to the american conception of academic freedom was the assumption of academic freedom defines the true university. as william harper, the first president of the university of chicago, observed in 1892, for any reason the administration of a university attempts to dislodge a professor bufz his political or religious sentiments, at that moment the institution has ceased to be a university. though american universities borrowed heavily from the german

era, there evolved two critical differences. first where as the german conception encouraged the professor to convince his students of the wisdom of his own views, the american conception held that the proper stance of the professors in the classroom was one of neutrality on controversial issues. as president charles elliott of harvard declared at the time, the notion that education consists in the implication of what the teacher deems true is intolerable in a university. second, the german conception of academic freedom distinguished sharply between freedom within and freedom outside the university. but in the walls of the academy, the german conception allowed a wide latitude of utterance, but outside the university, the german view assumed that professors were obliged to be krir come spekt and nonpolitical. american professors rejected this limitation.

drawing upon the more general american conception of freedom of speech, they insisted on participating actively in the arena of social and political action. american professors demanded the right to express their opinions, even outside the walls of academia and even on controversial subjects. this view of academic freedom is generated considerable friction for by claiming that professors should be immuned, not only for what they say in the classroom and their research, but also what they say in public discourse. this expanded conception empowers professors to engage in outside activities and views that can inflict serious harm on the university in the form of disgruntled trustees, alienated alumni and disaffected donors. these issues were brought to a head in the closing years of the 19th century when businessmen who had accumulated vast industrial wealth began sfourpt universities on an unprecedented scale. for at the same time trustee shift was increasingly becoming

an important symbol of business prominence, a growing concern among scholars about the excesses of commerce and industry generated new forms of research, particularly in the social sciences that were often sharply critical of the means by which these trustee philanthropists amassed their wealth. the mo gals and scholars came into direct conflict in the final years of the 19th century. a professor was dismissed from cornell for a pro-labor speech that annoyed a benefactor. this tension continued until the beginning of world war i when it was dwarphed by even larger conflict. during the great war, patriotic zeal ots prosecuted those who questioned the war from the draft. universities faced the almost total collapse of the institutional safe guards that had evolved up to that point to protect academic freedom.

for nothing had prepared them to deal with the issue of loyalty at a time of national emergency. at the university of nebraska, three professors were discharged because they asumd an attitude calculated to encourage a spirit of indifference to the war. at the university of virginia, a president was discharged because he made a speech predicting the war would not make the world safe for democracy. at columbia, the board of trustees launched a general campaign of investigation to determine whether doctrines intended to encourage a spirit of disloyalty were in fact being taught at the university. similar issues arose again with a vengance during the age of mccarthyism. in the late 1940s and 1950s many, if not most universities, excluded those excused of communist sympathies from participation in university life. university of washington fired three tenured professors. university of california dismissed 31 professors for refusing to sign an

anti-communist oath. and charles seymour boasted there would be no witch hunts at yale because there will be no witches. we will not hire communists. in many universities faculty members were complacent in the campaigns to purge their universities. most recently as jonathan carefully documents and already mentioned this evening, the bush administration tortured academic freedom in the 1990s by restricting research into certain sensitive areas, implementing restrictive visa policies for pro-speckive researchers, students and speakers, prohibiting the use of federal funds for embryonic stem cell research for religious reasons and implementing the peer knees system. so what could we learn from this quick survey of the history of academic freedom? several things, i think, emerge. first and perhaps most important, academic freedom is not the law of nature. it is a practical highly

vulnerable hard bought acquisition in the struggle for intellectual freedom and it needs to be understood as such. second, the real threat to academic freedom comes not from the isolated incident that arises out of a highly particularized and often publicized dispute, but rather from efforts to impose or docksy that would broadly silence dissent. third, every form of orthodoxy that has been imposed on the academy, whether religious, patriotic, scientific, philosophical or economic has been imposed by groups who were completely and sincerely con vined of the rightness of their position. over the benefit of hindsight every one of these groups has come to be viewed by thoughtful people as inappropriately intolerant at best and wrong at worst. finally what should be our concerns for the future?

for the most part they are, i think, mere extensions of the challenges that we have faced, not always very well, in the past. let me give you four examples. first and most obviously there is the corrupting temptation of money. from the very beginning of the modern university, the need for resources has generated dangerous conflict. how much should we bend our values to please or to avoid alienating our donors? i was at a university several months ago, with the most generous benefactor, who had not yet paid off his very large pledge, met regularly with the president and provost to make sure the university was headed in the right directions. there is no doubt that the president and provost were pandering to his ill-informed whims. i was appalled. but this sort of thing usually in a less gross form occurs naturally at universities all the time. the fact is that universities require a vast amounts of

financial support from individuals, foundations, corporations and governments in order to be great. too often though these donors want a say, they want to select the students who receive their scholarships, to remove their professorship a faculty member who has said or written something that offends them, or to insist that a program they support must use their products, and on and on. at what point does a dean, a provost or a president say, never mind, we will not take your money? this poses an especially serious dilemma, i think to, the scientist, in particularly in the realm of medical research where both the cost and stakes are especially high. as bill clinton said on another subject, when it comes to the future of academic freedom, it's the economy, stupid. second, we live in an era of political correctness, in which accusations, racism, sexism, homophobia, terrorism chill

discourse to the bones. it is impossible to take certain positions in our universities today without inviting a torrent of abuse, protest. in this respect stuns are often the worst violators. silencing too often is preferred to debate. but universities must stand for debate over repression. we must teach our students as well as our colleagues and alumni, the importance of tolerance, of civil discourse and of academic freedom. and this, too, we too often have failed. third, as we saw the rise of religious fundamentalists in the first half of the 19th century during the second great awakening had a devastating effect on free inquiry and institutions of higher learning. we may now, i fear, be in the early years of a third great awakening, as we experience new and perhaps even more aggressive form of religious fundamentalist. we see this today in the political realm of such issues

as abortion, creationism, stem cell research and same sex marriage. the same pressures 6' 8, 8 1/2, can do it all. i mean when i say do it all and do it gracefully. i mean with the greatest of ease. >> benji will, so his game and personality were -- wilson, his game and personality were electric, a future star in the nba until one morning when everything changed. get an inside glimpse at the man the nfl mayors have chosen to lead them in -- players have chosen to lead them in the fighnewtive rgaient. 'll uce emar ith. >> t our stin >> and a truy th abou

inws tvie' hello and welcome to this edition of net impact. we've seen nfl commissioner roger goodell and nfl players association executive director demaris smith exchanging pleasantries through the media and have even been in front of congress as the two sides attempt a collective bargaining agreement and as they do so the atmosphere will get more tense. we know goodell he's within on the job three years now but who is this man that the players have chosen to be their voice in this turbulent time? here's comcast sportsnet's mid- atlantic's jill sorenson. >> for our last practice we

could play head coach. >> yea! >> we do head coach. >> reporter: this is fun for demaris smith the executive director of the nfl players association by day and a coach for his 10-year-old son allen and his baseball team in silver vince, maryland, by night. >> tag -- in silver springs, maryland, by night. >> tag him! >> reporter: the intensity and passion you see here is smith's day job as union smith named the successor to the late and edge legendary gene upshaw in march, the man everyone calls dean has not slowed down. >> i've been on the job six months. i've probably been on the road three and a half, four months solid. >> reporter: he was seen as an outsider to get the job with former players as the front runners. his background as a trial lawyer was far from the experience of an nfl player. >> i definitely think that's a positive that he was an outsider, you know, guy coming in, he doesn't have all the

connections or, you know, any preconceived notions of what was happening before and, you know, can he come in and kind of look at things clearly. >> i'm very confident. i'm confident, that you know, he can get things done, whatever that may be. he's presented himself in such a way and i think he's broken it down to the players in such a way that we can understand it. >> reporter: as much as he's an outsider d. is a d.c. insider having grown up a stone's throw from fedex field. >> you come out of the room in d.c. and get smacked and then you're injected with burgundy and gold. >> reporter: on his resume counsel to then deputy attorney general eric holder and he also served on president obama's transition team. >> business worldwide in some way, shape or form always touches washington. it's one heck of a sports town. so yeah, those are things that are inextricably tied to who i am. does it affect what i do? probably. but hopefully affects it for

the better. >> reporter: with the possible lockout on the horizon demorris smith has made it a priority to visit each team to help them understand the process. >> this was in one of the file drawers in our office and it slowly but surely i'm going through every drawer, every cabinet. >> reporter: why? >> a great deal of our history on what we have done internally to be a stronger union is there. the one thing i'm blessed about is gene was an incredible note taker. here on the back he'd clearly written out in longhand a speech that i don't know whether he gave or was going to give, but the most interesting part at the bottom is you see it in quotes, the nfl has always been willing to take a short loss for a long term gain. >> reporter: in the midst of negotiations or perhaps because of them d. and the union have made national headlines on a regular basis. >> as executive director, my no. 1 priority is to protect those who play and have played this

game. to me it is probably a little bit of a combination of half negotiation, half trial lawyer. i mean both of those things are things that are in my dna for some way, shape or form. i think about my grandfather in the pulpit. there's probably a little bit of that, too. as a result, i'm really not afraid of my question. i want guys to be actively involved. truth be told, i probably lean on them in a very hard way, but this is their union. it's not my union. it's their union. >> reporter: always in the line of fire demorris smith is used to the heat. >> i thought that was a -- 17-year-old ben benji wilson was a rising star, a young basketball phenom with a definite nba future. in fact, in 1984 wilson was the no. 1 ranked high school basketball player in the nation. he'd been described as a magic johnson with a jump shot and

kevin garnett with a better handle of the ball and a better perimeter game. luke stuckmeyer of comcast sportsnet chicago shows us wilson's wizardry on the court. >> reporter: chicago may be a football town and baseball crazy in summertime, but at its core in the city basketball is a way of life. we're not just talking about the m.j. glory days. we're talking about the kids who built their games here like isiah thomas on the west side and more recently dwayne wade and derrick rose on the south side, but 25 years ago somebody else owned these courts in chicago, a skinny silky kid with a smile named benji. >> and center for the wolverines a junior, 6' 7, no. 25 ben wilson. >> if you haven't seen him, you're in for a treat, 20 a game. >> i would go and i want to be successful and i do what it takes to be successful and that

is when i go home i study and do my work and go to class. >> kind of corny stuff. >> well, it works. >> reporter: everything seemed to work for benjamin wilson, but especially basketball. >> wilson two. >> reporter: born and raised on the city's south side, he was the middle of five brothers and it wasn't long before that orange rock was the fiber of his life. >> looked like bruce lee with two basketballs. he approached the basketball hoops. just unbelievable what he could do with that ball three fingers pawning the ball like this. >> reporter: and with ben and his ball around the wilson's neighbors were always up early. >> the neighbors used to be furious about being woke up in the morning because he was always dribbling the basketball and one of the next-door

neighbors mr. robertson said benji was the alarm clock to get him up and go to work in the morning. >> reporter: by 16 wilson could still play like a point guard but now he soared like an eagle with his new 7' 3 wingspan. >> bankston drops it down to wilson for a turnaround. >> we used to imitate ben when he shoots his jump shot. it was like he'll shoot it and then put his wrist back like this and run down the court but everybody used to emulate him in high school. that's how big he was in high school. >> reporter: and everybody wanted to be around him. benji's game and personality drew in friends and admirers from all over including the nba. >> ben wilson steps in, scores. >> 6' 8, 8 1/2, can do it all. i mean when i say do it all and do it gracefully. i mean with the greatest of

ease. i mean and it looks so pretty when he was doing it. i mean it was smooth. it was silky. it was just you had to -- he had that camera that captured that moment. i mean he was that type of player. >> wilson slide down the lane. >> reporter: as a junior he was a starter on a lineup full of seniors. benji was third team all state and the wolverines went 30-1 for the 2a state title. that put simeon on the map. >> i think he helped push simeon into a more global nationwide type school, basketball power. i remember our senior year, you know, we thought we were world beaters, we could go anywhere and play anybody any time. >> reporter: after winning the state championship in the spring of 1984 ben kept

improving stunning scouts at the nike all american camp. he left as the first kid from illinois to ever be ranked as a no. 1 player in the entire country. >> he was clearly, clearly benjamin wilson was the no. 1 player in the country. no one came close. >> reporter: ahead how benji wilson's life changed in less than a second. >> ben's thumb was rising and then at midday. >> reporter: a horrific crime on these streets in chicago is

benji wilson's future seemed secure. just a few years in college before fame and wealth would schuler follow in the nba -- would surely follow in the nba, but it wasn't meant to be. instead there was a tragic turn of events and now 25 years later benji wilson has never been forgotten. let's get back to his story. >> reporter: ben wilson had it all, sizzling basketball skills and an electric personality, but on november 20th, 1984, it was a gray cold fall day a on the like this one and on vinsenz avenue right in front of simeon high school the day

was about to get even darker. >> the old guys, they've served their times and lived their lives, when the sun is eclipsed or the sun is rising it's so different. ben's sun was rising moving towards midday and then it became midnight at midday. >> reporter: at 12:37 on november 20th ben wilson was walking with his girl friend and mother of his 10-week-old son brandon. they were a block from the school. he liked to gather at a small store around lunchtime but benji bumped into two freshmen from calumet high school on the sidewalk. they pulled out a .22 caliber handgun and shot him twice, one bullet piercing his aorta and the other tearing a hole in his liver. >> to this day i still don't know the story. i've never tried to seek out the story because the only

person that could tell is and while the chaos continued at simeon benji's brothers were miles away with a sibling connection that still haunts them. >> i was in library class and i heard somebody say i got shot. i got shot. i was in library class and i was like i'm going crazy, but then i thought about cain and abel when cain slew his brother and the most high said where's your brother? i heard his blood cry from the earth. right there something let me know that he got shot.

>> and as a matter of fact, i had a dream two nights in a row before he died, somebody or something tried to tell me, had a dream that night benji was dead. next day i had a dream benji was dead. at that moment i heard my brother's voice say i got shoot just like i said to you there, came to me like. so this was something there and i was like what the hell's going on here? my mama always say you want the most high to talk to you, you got to be in a quiet place and i was in the library class at the time my brother was shot and i heard him. when i found out, i went be serk. >> ery as a

we seen ben on the floor by himself. that's what brothers do. >> they weren't supposed to. i don't like to talk about that but they had to see him. >> they was telling us that he's in stable condition and

kenny allen pulled the sheet back and we saw him. we had to see him and we knew he was gone. >> reporter: early the next morning the day his senior season was supposed to start ben wilson was pronounced dead at the age of just 17. even president ronald reagan called the family to offer h is dead. >> involved in extraordinary young man. >> he was gunned down. >> it's not how long you live. but how well you live. >> then i seen my brother in

that casket. oh, tried to wake him up like man, you ain't dead. get up, man. get up. get up. you ain't dead. get up. then seeing those two guys who did it. >> did you know ben wilson? did you know him? >> reporter: after the shooting cousins billy moore and omar dixon were taken into custody charged with murder and attempted robbery. moore was later sentenced to 40 years for pulling the trigger and dixon 30 years as his accomplice. on the day that benji died his simeon teammates decided to play their first game of the season without no. 25. earlier in the day students sobbed at simeon simply overwhelmed with grief, but benji's mother stood tall in

the gymnasium. >> so today i speak in love of all of you who keep benji's memory and dignity and be strength v and strength and love alive -- strength and love alive. >> reporter: the wake was held on the gymnasium floor and 8,000 people came to see benji lying in his no. 25 jersey. the line stretched blocks outside of the school, mourners waited seven hours. >> i still have dreams about him like, you know, he came back and he was able to play again, but just dreams. >> sometimes i sit down and, you know, when i'm going through things, you know, i speak, you know, just like i

would to my grandparents, you know. hey, benji, how you doing, that type of thing. i just can't forget about him. this is very emotional. >> reporter: still an emotional story 25 years later. there are some updates to this story. at the time of his murder benji wilson left behind a 10-week- old son named brandon. well, brandon would go on to become a talented high school prep basketball player himself.

even played some college basketball at the university of maryland eastern shore but he would leave after his sophomore season according to a school official and as for the two young men convicted of this horrific crime, william moore is still in federal prison for wilson's murder and omar dixon would tack on additional charms when he was arrested for aggravate -- charges when he was arrested for aggravated unlawful use of a weapon in a separate attempted murder case. let's move on. next summer south africa will play host to the 2010fifa world cup but it was back in 1995 when they hosted another world cup that changed the country, a game of rugby that united 42 million south africans. now clint eastwood's new movie in vic us brings this amazing true -- invictus brings this amazing true story to life and sat down with matt damon

is yuntr rep on ma ond sporth r tochan wor >> l s ouiny. rep onat inciple that the movie invictus was born. obviously you're a big sports fan yourself. what did sports do you think has the ability to unite people like the way we saw in this movie? >> weah, spare iqued ted o ite and ela was actually quoted as saying that. i guess there's something about getting, you know, 60,000 people in a space together g fotly sa thou kople ss tcoun caion peooss the . s cawas

thiste >> b me paect faces the daunting task of a vide h afogetin the wake of apartheid. what struck you about this story that made you so interested in wanting to do it? >> that it was true. i couldn't believe it when i read it and i called clint and i said i can't believe this stor ther fo as hand th wad thint make no e. leas pre, it kes teso me

repomandout th of e taint rugby team. francois is a pretty big guy. how did you get ady ay >>gr world obly t th beey so >> sou i am i am gs d, spiroem. epor lm'stitle us rto aem t mandela used as a sou inspn anngthg near i

because the country didn't fall into civil waby l e tionhould have and it's a decision that every single person in that country made. still to come he's a big and bad offensive lineman in the nfl but what are his keys to success off the field? s-

take a look at san francisco 49er eric heitmann and you'd never know that off the field he's a pianoman. here's comcast sportsnet's bay

area's brody brazil to show us. >> reporter: this is the side of eric heitmann people know, an offensive lineman for the 49ers since 2002. and this is the side most would never expect, at 6' 3 315 pounds he's got the frame of a football behemoth with the hands of a beethoven. >> my mom made me take lessons about 10, 11 years growing up as a kid. right around when i started playing football, football became more of a focus for me and piano you put on the back burner a little bit. it was always secondary for me, always a hobby but something that i always kept up. >> reporter: inside his home today heitmann employs both a piano and keyboard setup inner it connected with the apple program garage band. it is here where the stanford graduate composes his best work in the form of cinematic sound

scapes. >> my style is more of a movie classical theme sounding stuff i guess i would characterize it. >> so dramatic it plays well essentially. it's dynamic. >> yeah. i'd like to think that. you guys can be the judge. >> reporter: while football is the profession and composition is the passion, it's the music that gives eric an escape from life when he needs it. >> i'll be home sunday night or after a big game and maybe there's something you need to crank out on the piano to kind of relieve some emotions or something. i use it as an escape. it's a good way to kind of release frustration or whatever emotions you're feeling at the time. it's something i've done for so long, you know, i've played for so long i don't ever really want to let it go at this point. i enjoy playing and i'm going to keep doing it as long as i can. >> reporter: it's only natural to expect eric's musical endeavors will outlast his football career, but that doesn't necessarily mean he's planning for a future behind the keyboard. >> you never know. we'll see at some point maybe

if there's something you can put out there. i'd love to get in a recording studio at some point, maybe not for profit, just something i could show my kids at some point. i'll continue to do this for as long as i can. >> reporter: brody brazil, comcast sportsnet. >> he's pretty good. his team's not doing bad either. that's going to do it for this edition of net impact. i'm your host and for all of us thanks for watching, see you again next month.

welome, senior trevor booker. ♪ ♪ to prove on the replay on the school board ♪ ♪ saying you want to win . >> and for the home state florida seminoles, no one doubts

whether the star shines brighter on solomon alabi. ♪ ♪ need to show more respect in my house, i'm going to take flight ♪ >> clemson and rival florida state. acc sunday night hoop excitement is now. >> oh, you can feel the warmth of the sunshine state on this final day. of the month of february. but as we head towards march, the seminoles make their way out on to the floor here on acc sunday night hoops, playing host to the clemson tigers. if you look at the standings in the atlantic coast conference, this florida state is one of the hottest teams in the conference,

winners of their last three. and for clemson, a bubblelicious squad. they desperately want just their second road win. >> tim: hi, everyone. tim brando. by my side the g-man, mike gym minutes ski. >> tim: you take a look at trevor booker for really loves to attack the rim inside. he has expanded his game this year. can pull it outside as well. but in winning time, he is going to be in the paint. now his counterpart for florida state, solomon alabi has really polished up his low box game this year. a nice little jump-hook inside. he someone of the top shot-blockers in the conference. and very good on the offensive glass. you see their numbers. booker leads them in scoring, shoots a very high percentage. alabi with the two and a half blocks. >> once he blocks it. and you know clemson is going to utilize their pressing style. it should be one whale of a

94-foot game. clemson and florida state now on acc sunday night hoops.

a pair of junior guards will lead their collective teams. demontez for clemson against derwin kitchen of florida state. when we come back, the starting lineups and the opening tips in a bubblelicious matchup in the atlantic coast conference.

♪ ♪ ♪ [ nnou allat yp owhate alone.

♪ f lexus rx never has a e be signfeeltura ♪ see exusr. acc sunday night hoops as the clemson tigers and florida state seminoles get ready for action here at the donald tucker

convention center. jerai grant, along with tanner smith, brought to you by al. oliver purnell, what a job he has done. 7-6 in the acc, trying to get back to the ncaa tournament yet again. florida state starting five chris singleton along with reid the solid senior and alabi in the front line with derwin kitchen and michael snaer. ran the last three games offensively as anyone, mike, as anyone. you see the team playing well defensively. they're not starting to score as much as they once did since they are moved into the starting position. and it's really relieved dulkys a lot of bit from perimeter pressure. >> mike: the difference is with snaer you add into another into the starting lineup. he is probably more well

adjusted to be a starter and dulkys has taken the pressure off of him. he has found his shooting stroke over the last four or five games after really going through a serious drought. >> tim: this is one of the better defensive teams. not just in the conference, but in the country, florida state. and for clemson, their best offense is generally generated from their defense. and that's what oliver purnell told me would be a catalyst tonight, that his team continued to attack, not offensively, but defensively. >> mike: well, they beat florida state the first go-round up at little john because they were aggressive offensively and attacking their shot blockers and getting to the line. i think that's going to be big here. clemson feels much more comfortable playing more uptempo. >> tim: officials les joan, brendan steinz and mike stewart. and reid in the paint. and halfway down the cylinder and right back out. demond the easy.

. >> mike: in the first game, likely shot as they got. just couldn't get it to go down. >> tim: reid got his hand in the passing lane. clemson throws it over. >> we talk about the shot block. i think that ryan reid is very underestimated as an individual offender and a team defend e. he does a terrific job with his hands. >> tim: reid, knocks it down. 2-0 seminoles. >> mike: good to come back after a miss and knock down that next shop. he has to take that shot. everybody rotated off him. he is going to enforce this club. senior role player this year. exactly what he needs. >> tim: you can see the respect they have. booker right now. alabi on grant. alabi come downs with the rebound.

and that's a palming, which has always been a point of emphasize. derwin kitchen turns it right back over to clemson. >> mike: here is the look. they come off the two-man game. everybody rotates over. that was a pretty good find in the air by kitchen. >> tim: you look at the clemson season, mike, and it really is two different ones. with stitt and without stitt. and then the adjustments the team had to make once he got back. >> mike: very capable as a backup, but it compliments a player with stitt. he is the only guy out there that keeps the focus in on him and just not as effective at offense without stitt. >> tim: booker turns that over. airmails the pass. young is probably their best shooter along the perimeter.

and he comes off the bench to provide a spark. you'll see them together out on the floor. >> mike: a little bit of a smallish backcourt, especially against florida state. but they'll run with it. >> tim: alabi. the rebound. grant. quickly doubles. singleton on potter. they expect potter's three-point abilities to bother him. shot clock under 10. stitt tries to make his move. and dribble. outstanding defense by snaer. kitchen, the give-and-go. count it. back and forth from singleton. and this is where florida state is most effective too. when they can create offense out of their defense. you get a turnover out front. there there is not much defense can do to get back in time.

>> tim: very verbal home crowd here. the team is hot. they realize it. and they show up and respond to the ncaa tournament with a win against clemson. a very strong nine wins. the shot clock winding down. another violation committed by clemson. >> mike: and this is just good man-to-man defense right here that trig terse break, and that's two consecutive possession news, tim, that the shot clock has gotten on clemson's back. very good half-court defense. they're going have to hit some perimeter shots to loosen things up. there is no room to maneuver inside with all those trees that florida state has. >> tim: hence andre young making his way on to the floor.

along with milton jennings, the freshman from south carolina. >> tim: in the paint area against this team in the half-court. the blow-by. leaves it for alabi. >> mike: i tell you what. clemson will live with that. the low block. good shot. >> tim: that was deflected by alabi. what he does best, protect the clean area. singleton. and it's changed by andre young. and alabi will come away with the foul. grant was the recipient prior to being fouled by oliver.

15:3inininol pitc shu f i hate f u go he e pr. st makeppen did ion itilm .. pariquir rids? scoo who whare g veh. dir.. be bit. i wa bachina . bu ght'ht.. the new internna buss class. y sq e?

we americans are always at our best when we hear and heed the cries of others. when confronted with massive human suffering, americans have always stepped up and answered the call to help. but there's never been anything on the scale of human tragedy in our own hemisphere like what we're now witnessing in haiti. y president clinton and i are joining together to appeal to you with real urgency. give now, and lives will be saved. thank you. thank you.

acc sunday night hoops is delivered to you by pizza hut. right now get any pizza any time, any crust and any toppings for just one low price. all your favorite pizzas, just the way you want them, only at your pizza hut. and brought to you in part by your local lexus dealers. and by just for men hair color. live forward. a little spanish moss here in tallahassee. the seminoles using turnovers to turn into points. they lead by four. what they have done in acc ranking, mike, that's something leonard hamilton has a estimate of. >> mike: when you get into conference only, those rankings go down a little bit. and it's fair to point out they are last in defending the three-point shot. and i think that clemson in this game must shoot 40% to have a chance to win it from three.

>> tim: and obviously they are clogging the middle, doing everything in their power to deny booker from beating them. >> mike: he is almost getting a triple-team whenever he gets close to the lane. >> tim: have to get it up to johnson from downtown. tanner smith gets the offensive rebound. and clemson electric for florida state. fouled by johnson. the youngster from fayetteville, georgia, picking up the foul. he is out there with smith, andre young, milton jennings, trevor booker, and tanner smith, the five on the floor. for oliver purnell's team. he consistently uses nine in his rotation. the shot, inside to what a nice pass to reid. beautifully done. >> mike: he is playing at a higher level. the last five averages shooting

60%. an ace, and johnson pickses up a foul. clemson is now 0 for 7 from the floor. their first half looking similar to florida state's first half at clemson a few weeks back. >> mike: well, he got a little size advantage over johnson. he just plays over the top of everybody. that's not an easy pass to make, especially from a sophomore. not out on the floor a whole lot. but that was good find. >> tim: when we were here a couple of weeks ago for the game against, hamilton told us he wanted to get him more involved. he has certainly done that during this three-game win streak. >> mike: you get playing time, and you have to do something with it. he has earn in order minutes on the floor with his production. >> tim: reid, case of being downright rude against the backboard that time. but a foul the end result. >> mike: so far in this game,

tim, here is the help from the weak side. and nice shot. but good steal off their four orange jerseys there. and ryan reid comes up with it. he outfought everybody. >> tim: jennings picked up the foul, his first. noel johnson got into the game and quickly picked up two. so potter is back on the floor with reid at the line. the sophomore from clearwater replacing derwin kitchen for florida state. along with michael snaer's entrance into the lineup, leonard hamilton has asked his point guards to be more aggressive in rye tri-ing to score the basketball. both loucks and kitchen have been terrific in scoring games recently. >> tim: gibson, trying keep it alive. pulled down by booker.

they all go to the hoop here at some point in time. it's a shut-out. six minutes gone by. 0 for 7 from the floor. potter, tanner, got a hand on that one. and on the move. a surprise singleton that time with the pass. and tries to run it down, but can't. total frustration for clemson. that's a runaway easy duce on the other end. >> mike: that's why i think andre young would have been better served to dribble the ball up the floor and make an easy pass on the other end. he just wanted to try to get a home run play. >> tim: the best news for clemson, though, mike, when you go on the road in this league and don't score in the first six-plus minutes and you're only down seven, at least your defense is keeping you in the game. at least for the moment. gibson.

that was an easy pass but singleton was able to bail him out. gibson with the follow. almost a turnover. gibson was looking for the theatrical alley-oop. it would have been picked out of the air by clemson. singleton build a him out and got the ball right back to gibson for the flush. booker gets free underneath for the foul. gibson gets it. a very dangerous pass. >> mike: singleton is long enough and go up and correct a lot of the mistakes. a terrific follow by gibson. they're just playing over the top of clemson right now. you've got to block these guys out a little farther out than normal. they're just too long and they play over the top. and hopefully trevor booker can knock down these two free throws and get a little good vibe going. >> tim: a number of basketball come to believe florida state is an absolute matchup nightmare once they get out of the conference and into the ncaa

tournament. they are so long, and they've got post players that can defend the perimeter pretty well. >> mike: it's going to be matchup if you're getting a team that is shooting the three very well. it's going to be tough for them. that's going to be their toughest matchup. you're not going to find the size on many teams. they get a hot shooting team, that would give them trouble. >> tim: booker gets the first points of the game for clemson at the free-throw line. snaer on the backcourt now, along with loucks. at this point in the game, the seminoles have handled the pressure of clemson fairly well. not a lot of turnovers. snaer too strong, trying to use the glass. book were the rebound for the tigers. it's the lapse in concentration by a veteran player. a fifth turnover committed by the tigers. >> mike: it's interesting. that's a play that sometimes a

referee will just let go. you know, you're out on the rim and not really attacking the basket, guys can sometimes get away with that extra step. >> tim: the steal, singleton. and now he decides to challenge. nice save. loucks over a degree. >> mike: a couple of times now singleton has been able to bail out florida state with his ability to come up with the basketball. >> tim: the lead is ten. look at that. 0 for 9 with five turnovers. what a defensive job florida state has done. you might be able to overcome that at home, but on the road that does not travel very well. potter, can't get it to fall. a nice look. young with a perfect pass to devin booker. who had a very productive game in the first game of this series, 14 points in only 17 minutes.

in a lot of ways, he was the difference. that was a florida state start that resembles clemson's tonight. snaer. there is the follow. get it up near the rim and let solomon alabi gobble it up. >> mike: michael snaer is a very aggressive player really looks to attack the rim. >> tim: in traffic. devin booker again. trevor booker on the putback, wave it off. foul player to the shots by trevor booker. this sometimes can be a great pass idea. just putit n let i geflus

florida state leading it by 10 in this all important week of regular season basketball. we look at resumes of teams that are looking pretty good, although virginia tech now having lost their last three, two good outs, one poor one

against boston college, figure to be in good shape. they have a tussle with georgia tech coming up that will help solidify those situations. and maryland of course alongside duke have been outstanding through the course of the year. these teams that are firmly entrenched on the bubble. >> we thought that wake forest was in very good shape a couple weeks ago, and that's changed with very possibly performances. and georgia tech's got a big game coming up on tuesday at clemson. they have not traveled. the only road win at north carolina this year. >> tim: look at that. georgia tech's got quite a road to hoe when you think about it. virginia tech and clemson yet to play. paul hewitt's team has really struggled on the road. almost nine minutes gone by here in tallahassee. the seminoles leading by ten. tanner smith. they just cannot get a perimeter shot. >> mike: florida state in the game with contested jump shots

and get rebounds. that's exactly what they have done so far. >> tim: giving it back to reid. he fought to take to it the steps, but simply could not corral the pass where he needed it. there is the high pick from alabi. there is dulkys, trying to finish inside is solomon. shot clock under ten. good ball movement to kitchen. not there. tanner smith brings it down. demontez stitt, looking to get devin booker involved. trevor booker sitting now on a time-out. stitt right past loucks. good move by tanner smith. now off the made basket, clemson can set up their