The turmoil began in 1896 at Stanford when Edward A. Ross, a young professor of economics, caught the ire of the university’s administrators, and even Jane Stanford herself, after his vocal criticisms of the railroad industry from which the Stanfords made their money.
Between 1896 and 1900, Ross advocated for various populist policies. He authored political pamphlets, including one titled Honest Dollars that was in support of the free silver movement, which argued for a reform of the country’s monetary supply to be backed by silver instead of gold. Silver was seen as a currency for ordinary, working-class people; gold was for monopolists and capitalists – like the Stanfords, who had amassed a large fortune in the construction of the railroad across the American West. (A rumor had also circulated that Ross had said to his students “a railroad deal is a railroad steal,” a claim he later denied.)
Jane Stanford urged then-president David Starr Jordan to fire the incendiary professor but Jordan resisted.
Things took a turn in 1900 when Ross delivered anti-Asian remarks at a meeting of the United Labor Organization where he called for the expulsion of Japanese immigrants from the United States and Stanford finally had enough of Ross’ outspokenness.
Ross’ opinions caused an uproar – not for being xenophobic and racist – but for being political in nature. Stanford believed that a university professor should not publicly express their partisan preferences for fear it could sully the reputation of the institution.
After much quarreling between Ross, Stanford, and Jordan, Ross eventually resigned, along with seven other professors in protest (representing about 10 percent of the Stanford faculty, Levine pointed out).
The dispute made newspaper headlines, and it also established new ways to think about the relationship between freedom of expression and scholarship.
“Ross’ departure was no longer a mere event,” Levine explained. “It rose to become an ‘affair’ in the eyes of the nation and the academy, and as a result, catalyzed the transformation of academic freedom from a haphazard custom to a professional ideal.”