Stanton sues Rutgers

In 1992, Addictive Behaviors published an article I wrote about influences that caused American behaviorists to reject controlled drinking therapy. I focussed on Peter Nathan, who in 1983 became director of America's flagship alcohol research program, the Rutgers Center of Alcohol Studies. Controlled drinking treatment and research received little attention during Nathan's tenure at the Center.

R. Brinkley Smithers

My article addressed the Center's relationship with Brinkley Smithers, a recovering alcoholic who strongly opposed controlled drinking. Smithers is a monumental but little known figure in the modern alcoholism movement and alcohol science in America. The National Council on Alcoholism, which championed the disease concept of alcoholism in post-war America, was near bankruptcy when Smithers funded it in 1954. Smithers was NCA president until 1965.

Smithers was also active on the academic front. He funded E.M. Jellinek's 1960 The Disease Concept of Alcoholism. Smithers became a major funder of the Center of Alcohol Studies when it moved from Yale to Rutgers in 1962 (where it was ensconced at Smithers Hall). Unfortunately, Smithers had become disillusioned with the Center because of its involvement with controlled drinking by the time Nathan became director in 1983. In 1986, however, Smithers made a $3.5+ million gift to the Center. (Overall, Smithers donated $40 million to the alcohol field from 1952 to 1992.)

In December 1992, I wrote to Rutgers as a public university seeking documents concerning the Smithers grant. University Counsel rejected my request. Four years later, in January 1997 (when I was near graduation from Rutgers Law School), I asked again to see both official documents and Center staff correspondence concerning Smithers. In March 1997, I sued Rutgers to produce these documents.

Rutgers has hired a law firm to contest my requests. Eventually, Rutgers said they would allow me to see official documents on the grant, but sent me a list of 133 communications to, from, and among Rutgers staff being withheld from me. Remarkably, these letters ceased between 1993-95. Just before this hiatus, in December 1992, President Francis Lawrence wrote directly to Adele Smithers. This followed a letter from Peg Baker to a Smithers official "re: Stanton Peele," for which Rutgers is claiming confidentiality on the grounds it concerns "Fundraising/Fostering Donor Relations."

Thus, correspondence to and from Rutgers personnel in their official capacities is being denied me, some of it about me, some of it over 12 years old, even after Brinkley Smithers has died. Moreover, Fred Rotgers told me that the Smithers Foundation refused to fund the Center after Rutgers started a clinic employing controlled drinking. Nonetheless, Rutgers reinitiated its efforts to secure money from Smithers, and in October 1996 Lawrence again wrote to Adele Smithers "fostering donor relations." (Incidentally, in 1989, Lawrence's predecessor Edward J. Bloustein nominated R. Brinkley Smithers for the Nobel Peace Prize.) Mrs. Smithers is highly opinionated about controlled drinking. She declared in a 1995 National Council press release, "Millions of Americans have recently seen life-threatening stories in the media claiming that people with alcohol problems don't have to stop drinking completely to get better."

The test for releasing documents of a public body is that the requestor's interest in the material outweigh Rutgers' claims of confidentiality. Rutgers President Lawrence has written about my case: "The documents which have not yet been offered to Dr. Peele generally contain personal information regarding private donors or sensitive donor relations issues, or bear on the issue of fundraising. Rutgers believes that disclosure of these documents would undermine future fundraising efforts...."

If anyone on this list would like to write a letter in support of my right to see the documents in question, please send these to me or contact me to discuss. A letter addressing the following would be helpful:

1. noting how funding has been shown to influence scientific research,
2. the importance for the validity of science of exposing the financial links to research and scientific positions in general, in the alcoholism field, and in the Smithers-Rutgers Center case in particular,
3. the need for academic institutions to be aboveboard in accepting financial assistance,
4. my standing as a figure in the alcoholism field, my interest and involvement in tracking how non-scientific and non-therapeutic political forces impact alcoholism research and treatment, my concern over the specific link between Smithers and the Rutgers Center and my efforts to explore this link.

A statement of your own academic/professional standing and concern over these issues is appropriate.

... But you are a rabble rouser, a personality killer, a man on a mission, etc. I wouldn't want to even tell you what state I lived in let alone give you access to my peronel papers. The guy had a lot of money and a some beliefs about alcoholism he was willing to fund. What else is there to know? I wopuld be willing to support Rutgers in this but am sure they don't need it.

John Gessner

Dear John:

I think you're safe, because with all due respect, I'm not as interested in your state as I am in Smithers' and Rutgers' for reasons indicated below.

Regards,

Stanton

P.S. Would you tell me what time zone you live in?