2142 VETOES

would let the University, alone among the State departments,
choose its architects and conclude its own financial arrange-
ments for such services. It could then develop the plans and
specifications completely independent of any other office of the
State, disregarding the Department of Public Works which was
created to restrain over-exuberant spending for public im-
provements.

The law now requires contracts for public works to be
awarded after competitive bidding. If this well-established
public policy is correct, there appears no good reason for per-
mitting the University to operate otherwise. The bill would
allow the University to proceed by private negotiation, without
publicly advertised bidding. I have not been persuaded that
this departure would be in the public interest.

The recent episode of the "unauthorized" building at Prin-
cess Anne is still fresh in the public mind. If House Bill 681
becomes law the University can build what it wants, wherever
it wants, without sanction of any official, board or commission.
No other body in this State has such sweeping and unlimited
powers, nor should it have.

This bill sets aside the authority of the Board of Regents in
regard to the appointment of deans, professors, teachers and
instructors. Doubtless the opinion and the recommendation
of the President should be given weight by the Board of Re-
gents, where they have the appointive power, but, to provide
by statute that no authority shall be in them, but shall be in
the President alone is not, so far as I am aware, consistent
with the best thinking concerning higher education. Nor does
there appear any reason for further diminishing the authority
of the Board of Regents and increasing the prerogatives of
the President.

No evidence has been presented that the existence of the
authority to appoint professors, which is now legally in the
Board of Regents, has led to abuses which would be remedied
by putting that power in the hands of the President. Certainly
there is no indication that the Regents have unduly restrained
the President; the converse has often been asserted.

Academic freedom, one of the cornerstones not only of a
strong University, but of democracy itself, is dependent upon
the security in employment of members of university faculties.
One of the faults that has been pointed out again and again
about our University is the absence of this security. Shifting
complete power over faculty employment from the Board of
Regents to the office of President, in law as well as in practice,
as this bill proposes, would certainly not increase the safe-
guards to academic freedom and might possibly further aggra-
vate the present weakness in the University structure.