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A Times Editorial
© St. Petersburg Times, published August 13, 2001
For 13 years, the respected Chronicle of Higher Education has tracked what it calls academic earmarks, or research money federal lawmakers funnel to home-state universities without benefit of peer review. While some of the projects are worthwhile, the lack of academic oversight often skews priorities, undermining the competitive structure for grant making and endangering academic freedom in the process.
Many earmarks are the equivalent of budget turkeys, directing aid to specific institutions regardless of merit. At best, such grants tend to have regional, rather than national, impact. The University of Alaska at Fairbanks, for example, received $645,000 to develop a machine for deboning wild salmon. For its part, Florida weighed in with a $198,000 grant to study the cultivation of ornamental fish. The fish grant was part of Florida's $76.9-million in total earmarks, largely courtesy of Rep. C.W. Bill Young, chairman of the House Appropriations Committee.
Researchers will tell you that peer review -- through which panels of experts evaluate the merits of research proposals -- is a cornerstone of academic rigor. It helps ensure from the outset that taxpayer dollars are spent on the most promising projects. The earmarking process often conflicts with the merit system. At the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, life sciences researchers took an across-the-board 5 percent cut in funding to pay for earmarks in other departments.
Some university officials argue that peer-reviewed competition disadvantages smaller, less prestigious schools in favor of more famous or wealthy institutions. But the earmarking process has more obvious biases, allowing universities to trade on their reputations, their coziness with lawmakers and the connections of their lobbyists.
The increase in earmarking also has the potential to undermine academic freedom. If universities or departments come to rely too heavily on public officials for appropriations, those Washington benefactors can gain undue influence over everything from curriculum decisions to lecture invitations.
Research grants are too important to take on the flavor of political pork. The priorities for scientific research are better set among the experts in those fields than in the chambers of Congress.