A Digital Exhibition Credits Veblen's Role in Aiding Displaced Scholars

As American institutions of higher learning come under increasing attack in our country, impacting the careers of many scholars and jeopardizing America's leading role in the sciences and other disciplines, it's useful to step back to a much different time, 92 years ago, when America became a refuge for scholars displaced by oppression elsewhere in the world. Most dramatic was the Nazi purge in 1933 of Jewish scholars from German universities. Up to that point, European universities in Germany and elsewhere had set the standard for academic excellence to which American universities had long aspired. The Nazi purge provided an opportunity to rescue top German scholars from an uncertain fate and to benefit from their brilliance.

A digital exhibition developed by the Institute for Advanced Study confirms Oswald Veblen's central role in this effort, as he envisioned and helped to create the Emergency Committee in Aid of Displaced Foreign Scholars. As founding professor at the IAS, Veblen and others at the Institute played a major role in finding positions for displaced scholars, not only at the Institute but throughout the free world.

It is gratifying to see the visionary and organizational capacities of Veblen, here shown with his wife Elizabeth, being recognized.  

Also gratifying is the exhibition's frequent crediting of the Institute staff's role in working out the myriad details involved in bringing displaced scholars to America.

One letter quoted in the digital exhibition, written by Veblen to Simon Flexner in the months after the Nazi purge, shows not only how quickly Veblen reacted to the crisis in Germany, but also his style of gathering opinions from multiple sources in order to develop a best approach.

"Since our conversation in Washington about the problem of what can be done to help the Jews and Liberals who are driven out of their positions in Germany, I have talked with a few of my colleagues here and some others. The idea which seems to receive most favor is that of having a committee for the natural sciences ... to distribute the German scientists who are helped in various countries in such a way as to not cause an undue concentration anywhere but so as to allow them to continue their scientific work."

The Institute's founding in 1930, funded by the Bambergers as a destination for scholars of the highest standing, to be recruited "with no regard whatever to accidents of race, creed, or sex," could not have been more auspicious. In 1933 alone, the work of Veblen and others provided permanent positions for Einstein, Kurt Godel, John von Neumann, and Hermann Weyl.

Thanks to IAS archivist Caitlin Rizzo for bringing this excellent digital exhibition to my attention.