John Silber

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John Silber on the cover of his 1989 book "Straight Shooting"

John Robert Silber (born August 15, 1926) is a controversial former president of Boston University and Democratic candidate for governor of Massachusetts in the 1990 election. He was born in San Antonio, Texas.

Silber graduated from Trinity University in 1947. He then spent a year at Yale Divinity School and a semester at the University of Texas School of Law before returning to Yale University to earn his Ph.D. in philosophy. His philosophical work focused primarily on Kant and issues on the philosophy of education. He taught philosophy at Yale for 5 years, and then at the University of Texas at Austin where he chaired the Department of Philosophy from 1961 to 1967, when he became Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences. The division of the College into two - a College of Humanities, Social and Behavioral Sciences, and a College of Natural Sciences - was the cause of his departure from the University of Texas in 1970

He has written such books as "Straight Shooting", and his articles have been featured in publications such as Philosophical Quarterly, Philosophical Review, Kant-Studien, The New Republic, and The Atlantic. He also served as the editor of Kant-Studien, the major international journal for Kant scholarship.

Silber was the first chairman of the Texas Society to Abolish Capital Punishment and a leader in the integration of the University of Texas. He was involved in the creation of Operation Head Start.

In 1990 he ran for Governor of Massachusetts as a Democrat. His outsider status as well as his outspoken and combative style were advantages in a year in which voters were disenchanted with the Democratic party establishment. However, in the general election, he lost to Republican William Weld.[1]

He became the President of Boston University in 1971, and in 1996 became chancellor after stepping down as president. With an annual salary that reached $800,000, Silber ranked as one of the highest paid college presidents in the nation. That same year he was appointed by William Weld to serve as head of the Massachusetts Board of Education.

His tenure with the University was not without controversy. A conservative on many issues, Silber refused to add "sexual orientation" to the university's non-discrimination clause and disbanded the gay-straight alliance at the University's affiliated high school. These actions caused many protests, and in part have contributed to the low alumni giving rate.[2]

However, it should be noted that during Silber's tenure Boston University attained greater status, ranking consistently since 1970 as one of the top "National Universities" in the United States. He was directly responsible for the hiring of not less than 4 Nobel Prize winners in science and renowned professors like Sam Bass Warner in the Department of History.

Silber was on the board of trustees of Adelphi University in 1996 when the New York State Board of Regents dismissed seventeen of the trustees along with the president amidst charges of corruption made by the faculty union.