Hilliard Kent Macomber

Professor of Physics, Emeritus

University of Northern Iowa

31 August 2001

I am writing to protest the firing of Jeff Schmidt by Physics Today. It is deeply disappointing that the magazine most broadly representative of physics in the United States should punish an employee for expressing himself concerning political subordination in the professional workplace. Physics Today is no ordinary commercial publication, intended simply to make money for its owner or owners. Rather, it is an expression of a fundamental scholarly discipline and as such should in all ways exhibit the intellectual responsibility and support the intellectual freedom that undergird the discipline. It appears that the management of the magazine does not understand this. I hope that their superiors at the American Institute of Physics do.

Hilliard Kent Macomber