BY HANK REICHMAN

Andrei Sakharov

The Andrei Sakharov Prize, awarded biennially by the American Physical Society (APS), “recognizes outstanding leadership and achievements of scientists in upholding human rights.”  The Prize is named in honor of the late Soviet physicist and human rights activist Andrei Sakharov and endowed by contributions from friends of Sakharov.

In March, the APS presented the award to Professor Yoel Fink, a leading expert in photonics and advanced materials at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).  As the Sakharov Foundation recognized in its announcement of the award, “Somewhat worryingly, his award is described as: ‘For defending the academic freedom and human rights of scientists working in the U.S.’  Something that for decades had been taken for granted – academic freedom in the U.S. – got eroded to such an extent that defending it takes courage, with a possible detriment to one’s own scientific career or even liberty, as was the case with Andrei Sakharov.”

The MIT Faculty Newsletter recently published the text of Professor Fink’s address to the APS on the occasion of his receipt of the prize.  The following are excerpts from that address:

What is the true meaning of our privileges – our status, our position, our discoveries, our reputations, our tenure, the special access they afford us?  Are these merely the benefits of the job, the natural consequence of talent, hard work and success?  Or do they carry with them an obligation – to stand for the rights of another human being, of a colleague or a student who suddenly finds themselves in the “loneliest place in the world?”  And if so, are we willing to risk what we have in order to support that noble endeavor? . . .

There is no question that the scientific enterprise as we have known it is facing significant headwinds in this country – it is not apparent to me how much of this is an “American problem” or whether this is a sign of things to come.  The measure of a theory is in its ability to predict the outcome of an experiment; the future is an experiment on the grandest scale and yet we are at loss to predict it.

In the absence of all-encompassing theories we have the next best thing: leading indicators – those early signs like the dark clouds on the horizon that foretell a coming storm.  In 1821 Heinrich Heine famously wrote: “that was only a prelude, where they burn books, they will ultimately burn people as well.”  With Heine’s 200-year-old warning in mind, I would distill my message today: “where the dignity of scientists is destroyed, science itself may soon follow” – in other words, ignoring the torching of a colleague’s reputation carries immeasurable consequences to the human spirit and to truth itself. . . .

How do violations of human dignity come about?  Haven’t we as a civilized society, created a system of rules, codes, and institutions that are designed specifically to shield us?  Weren’t our institutions of higher learning and research designed to do just that?  The outcomes speak for themselves: neither the codified books of laws, nor our esteemed institutions, nor even tenure stand in the way when the forces of politics, expediency, institutional self-preservation, power, misinformed public, or plain old hatred of foreigners, intellect, or antisemitism bear down on us.

Most disappointingly is that our own academic institutions are unable or unfit to rise to the occasion.  They lack the fundamental ability to process risk inherent to groundbreaking discoveries and love the prestige of an upside, while rendered incapable of handling failures which are central to any risky enterprise such as science. . . .

Charlie Lieber, a respected scientist and a serving department head of Chemistry, was interrogated and arrested on Harvard’s campus in the early part of 2020, accused among other things of wire fraud and tax evasion.  His institution – Harvard University – collaborated with the FBI, arranging an on-campus interrogation while not conditioning it on legal representation; Harvard prides itself on its school of law yet neglected to offer this basic right to its own faculty.

Lieber’s reputation and dignity were effectively destroyed well before any trial took place.  Painfully, his plight was met with a deafening silence not only by his complicit university but sadly by his own colleagues – the 2,400 members of the faculty of arts and science.  This set the stage for a playbook that soon was to be used elsewhere.  The DoJ and the FBI concluded that their approach for persecuting scientists at research universities was working; aggressive, innovative prosecutorial strategies would soon be tested on campuses around the country including at MIT.

Armed with a basic knowledge of history and the leading indicators mentioned above, I was deeply alarmed and took the time to read and study any and all material released on Lieber’s case.  In an MIT wide faculty meeting on February 5th 2020, I questioned our silence and warned that we may be next.

On Thursday January 14, 2021, the “China Initiative” hit home for us at MIT.  Agents raided Professor Chen’s home in Cambridge in an early dawn raid; his wife Tracy was ordered out of bed by agents while they looked on – she refused.  We learned that evening that Professor Chen had allegedly defrauded the government of $19 million and was guilty of wire fraud.  MIT’s president expressed pain, but we the faculty decided to go further.

The very next day at 4:00 PM, a group of about 20 MIT faculty gathered on Zoom.  The title of the presentation was “have you no decency sir?”, the famous quote from attorney Joe Welch that effectively ended the McCarthy hearings in 1954.  We ended the meeting by reading the poem “First they came for the Communists – And I did not speak out” by Martin Neimoller.  It didn’t take long for us to realize that the government’s criminal complaint had serious factual errors – including listing Prof. Gang Chen as a recipient of a whopping $29 million from the Chinese government, which we all knew went to MIT.

Why would the government choose to mislead if they had a truthful case?  We realized that if a person like Gang could be criminally targeted for routine scientific activities, then none of us are safe.  The rally cry “We Are All Gang Chen” underscored that it wasn’t his dignity and reputation alone that was maligned – it was ours.

The DoJ and FBI were bringing the heavy machinery of the federal justice system, such as “wire fraud” statutes developed for organized crime, into the halls of science.  In doing so they were damaging the very same American innovation they sought to protect.  Fear kills creativity and collaboration.  A reputation built over a lifetime is gone in an instant.  The concept of a “golden hour” applies to situations where the reputation of a colleague is assaulted by powerful forces.  After the arrest of Professor Gang Chen, our community mobilized quickly, and today, Professor Gang Chen is a free man.

The stories of these individuals are intended to illustrate the impact of inaction but also to capture the opportunity in taking a stand.  The US today is a world away from the USSR of Sakharov’s times, however certain similarities in the persecution of scientists, in the suppression of free speech and in the violations of human rights remain.  These were the very causes that Andrei Sakharov fought for.

The appeal to consider our privilege not as a source of benefit but as a deep personal obligation in defense of human rights captures the arc of Sakharov’s life.  For it may be that our ascent to privilege was meant for this moment.  The call for action couldn’t be more clearly articulated in Sakharov’s words: “In struggling to protect human rights we must, I am convinced, first and foremost act as protectors of the innocent victims.”

Contributing editor Hank Reichman is professor emeritus of history at California State University, East Bay; former AAUP vice-president and chair of the AAUP Foundation; and from 2012-2021 Chair of AAUP’s Committee A on Academic Freedom and Tenure. His book, The Future of Academic Freedom, based in part on posts to this blog, was published in 2019.  His Understanding Academic Freedom was published in October, 2021; a second edition came out in March 2025.  He is a member of AAUP’s Committee on College and University Governance and President of the At-Large Chapter.