In Tennessee

The story of how the President of the University of Tennessee dismissed six professors who had expressed liberal concern over his dismissal of another professor who had purchased copies of James Harvey Robinson's Mind in the Making, to be read by his classes (TIME, July 16), had another chapter added to it.

The alumni, protesting, as had the student body, called a meeting of the trustees. (Governor Austin Peay of Tennessee, a trustee, had declared that the dismissed professors should have a thorough hearing.)

Mr. Bolton Smith of Memphis (whose son refused to take his degree at Amherst when President Meiklejohn was ousted) proposed that the Faculty should be represented on the Administrative Council of the University. And he gained this much-- that two of the four Faculty members should be elected by the Faculty.

Then the dismissed professors were heard, Dr. Sprowls first. He told how he had ordered The Mind in Making for his classes, how it had arrived in the University Book Store, how one of his superiors returned the books to the publisher, how Dr. Sprowls had protested to President Morgan. According to Dr. Sprowls the President had replied: " I believe in evolution more than you do, Dr. Sprowls, but it is necessary to soft pedal evolution because Tennessee is as likely to have a 'monkey' legislature as Kentucky." Thereupon Dr. Sprowls was dismissed. He told the trustees that there was no question of his reinstatement--he had secured a position with the University of Idaho, and would not return to Tennessee if asked. He asked, however, that the other six professors be reinstated.

The trustees, having heard the other unfortunate professors, voted to sustain their discharge. Two dissenting votes were cast--one by Mr. Smith, one by Governor Peay.