Immigration, Freedom, and the History of the Institute for Advanced Study Fadi Bardawil, Thomas Dodman, Ian Jauslin, Pascal Marichalar, Klaus Oschema, Peter Redfield To cite this version: Fadi Bardawil, Thomas Dodman, Ian Jauslin, Pascal Marichalar, Klaus Oschema, et al.. Immigration, Freedom, and the History of the Institute for Advanced Study. Notices of the American Mathematical Society, American Mathematical Society, 2017, 64 (10), pp.1160-1168. 10.1090/noti1596. halshs- 02388810 HAL Id: halshs-02388810 https://halshs.archives-ouvertes.fr/halshs-02388810 Submitted on 10 Dec 2019 HAL is a multi-disciplinary open access L’archive ouverte pluridisciplinaire HAL, est archive for the deposit and dissemination of sci- destinée au dépôt et à la diffusion de documents entific research documents, whether they are pub- scientifiques de niveau recherche, publiés ou non, lished or not. The documents may come from émanant des établissements d’enseignement et de teaching and research institutions in France or recherche français ou étrangers, des laboratoires abroad, or from public or private research centers. publics ou privés. COMMUNICATION Immigration, Freedom, and the History of the Institute for Advanced Study Fadi Bardawil 1, Thomas Dodman2, Ian Jauslin3, Pascal Marichalar 4, Klaus Oschema 5, and Peter Redfield 6 Communicated by Harriet Pollatsek In response to the January 27, 2017, US presidential exec- utive order initially banning travel and immigration from seven predominantly Muslim countries, members of the Institute for Advanced Study (IAS) mobilized a History Working Group. This article is adapted from their reports in the spring 2017 IAS Newsletter. The full articles, as well as a companion exhibit showcasing original materials from the Institute’s archives, are also available on the IAS website7 and in print/ebook as a booklet. 1Fadi Bardawil is an anthropologist at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and a former Member (2016–2017) of the School of Social Science at the IAS. His e-mail address is bardawil@ email.unc.edu 2Thomas Dodman is a historian at Columbia University, and a former Member (2016–2017) of the School of Historical Studies at the IAS. His e-mail address is [email protected] 3Ian Jauslin is a Member (2016–2017) of the School of Mathematics at the IAS. His e-mail address is [email protected] 4Pascal Marichalar is a sociologist and historian with the French Na- Figure 1: Albert Einstein at his home, 112 Mercer Street tional Center for Scientific Research (CNRS), and a former Member in Princeton, New Jersey, with a group of World War II (2016–2017) of the School of Social Science, IAS. His e-mail address is European Jewish refugee children. [email protected] 5 Klaus Oschema is a historian at the Ruhr-Universität Bochum, and The Institute’s Founding Ethos a former Member (2016–2017) of the School of Historical Studies at the IAS. His e-mail address is klaus.oschema@ruhr-univer- in Our Precarious Present sitaet-bochum.de The Institute for Advanced Study came into being at the 6Peter Redfield is an anthropologist at the University of North most inauspicious of times. Founded in the early years of Carolina at Chapel Hill, and a former Member (2016–2017) of the Great Depression, it took shape during the buildup to the School of Social Science at the IAS. His e-mail address is red- the Second World War and under the growing shadow of [email protected] authoritarian regimes. Its first director, Abraham Flexner, 7www.ias.edu/idea-tags/history-working-group published his manifesto on “The Usefulness of Useless For permission to reprint this article, please contact: Knowledge” in October 1939, barely a month after the out- [email protected]. break of hostilities in Europe. Surely this was a daunting DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1090/noti1596 moment to defend “the fearless and irresponsible thinker” 1160 NOTICES OF THE AMS VOLUME 64, NUMBER 10 COMMUNICATION and advocate for the free expression of knowledge and coming to power. But how far should they continue in curiosity. recruiting additional émigrés? Flexner initially expressed The very adversity of the era, however, created opportu- ambivalence on the topic, torn between a desire to live up nities for the fledgling institution, primarily in the form of to founding ideals and concern over the need to support sudden availability of renowned and newly mobile schol- and foster local talent. He wrote to Veblen on March 27, ars from the upper echelons of the German university sys- 1933: “Mr. Bamberger and Mrs. Fuld were very anxious tem. After expressing initial hesitation, Flexner followed from the outset that no distinction should be made as the urging of influential faculty members, particularly respects race, religion, nationality, etc., and of course I am the mathematician Oswald Veblen, in seeking to provide in thorough sympathy with their point of view, but on the a haven for some of these new refugees, a sanctuary tra- other hand if we do not develop America, who is going to dition continued by Frank Aydelotte, Flexner’s successor. do it, and the question arises how much we ought to do In association with the Emergency Committee in Aid of for others and how much to make sure that civilization in Displaced Foreign Scholars, the Rockefeller Foundation, America advances.” On May 2, again responding to Veblen, and the Carnegie Foundation, the IAS played a leading role he expanded on the same theme: “We are certainly in the in this farsighted, if ever elite, rescue effort. devil of a fix. Unable to care for our own younger men, We find ourselves today, nearly nine decades after the we are pressed by applications from foreign countries. It Institute’s founding in 1930, at another inauspicious junc- seems to me clear that we must in the first place endeavor ture. Global political forces in power from Turkey to the to find work for those whom we have encouraged to train United States are posing serious threats to the autonomy themselves in this country on the theory that, if they were of scientific research and the mobility of researchers, un- worthy, there would be jobs waiting for them. Until we dercutting two cardinal conditions for scientific progress. have done that, what else can we do? Our opportunities for Walls, fences, bans, blocks, restrictions, cuts, and expul- making places for foreigners are therefore at the moment sions are slowly becoming run-of-the-mill terms for us to limited to a few outstanding personages such as Einstein navigate in an increasingly precarious political landscape. and Weyl … .” Travel restrictions involving pure accidents of birth, For his part, Veblen pressed for a more active stance, documented by passports from flagged countries, have not only advocating that the Institute do all it could, but prompted us to revisit today the Institute’s history. We also endorsing the establishment of a formal network to seek to provide sketches of earlier scholarly lives and sci- provide assistance to scholars in need. He wrote to Flexner entific cultures interrupted by nationalist forces of exclu- on May 5: “Some kind of a committee to raise funds for sion. That these lives and cultures managed to reconstitute the purpose of enabling some of them to live and continue themselves and enrich our common human heritage is their scholarly work in the countries adjacent to Germany thanks to efforts to provide them with sanctuary. or elsewhere might be feasible. The existence of such a committee would in itself be an eloquent protest.” That The Conversion of Abraham Flexner same month, the Institute of International Education in At the end of January 1933, Adolf Hitler became chan- New York City set up its Emergency Committee in Aid of cellor of Germany. Over the next two months, the Nazi Displaced German Scholars (later renamed to include all Party moved quickly to consolidate its power, expanding Foreign Scholars), headed by Edward R. Murrow, to assist executive authority through emergency decrees and scholars fleeing Europe. Veblen would join its board soon swiftly moving into a formal dictatorship. An edict in April thereafter. initiated a purge of civil servants who were of non-Aryan Over the course of the ensuing years, Flexner would descent or exhibited suspect political sentiments. This undergo a conversion, becoming more deeply involved in law directly impacted German universities, and it had a assistance projects—he followed Veblen into the Emer- particularly strong effect in the fields of mathematics and gency Committee—and increasingly willing to mobilize the natural sciences, where Jews had enjoyed better prospects Institute to this effect. In a 1938 letter to George Birkhoff of pursuing a scholarly career. As a consequence, many at Harvard, he insisted that national origin should never of the country’s strongest intellectual centers lost lead- stand in the way of higher goals: “Let us keep firmly in ing figures in the space of just a few months, including front of our eyes our real goal, namely the development the renowned Mathematical Institute at the University of of mathematics, not American mathematics or any other Göttingen, home of David Hilbert, Richard Courant, Her- specific brand of mathematics, just simply mathematics. It mann Weyl, and Emmy Noether. This upheaval produced a can be developed only by having first-rate men in import- sudden wave of refugee scholars seeking to emigrate and ant posts, and every time an institution gets one first-rate desperate to find positions elsewhere. It also coincided man he creates opportunities for other first-rate men, with the transition of IAS from a concept to an embodied and every such center that is developed stimulates some institution, through the founding of the inaugural School other institution to do likewise.