David Saxon, who came to UCLA in 1947 to teach nuclear physics,
and in more than five decades that followed became an iconic figure
in the University of California system, died Thursday at the UCLA
Medical Center after a long illness. He was 85.
During a career at the University of California which spanned 58
years, Saxon rose from a post as a UCLA professor to president of
the UC system. He showed his fortitude when he refused to sign an
anti-communist loyalty oath at the beginning of the Red Scare of
the 1950s even though it meant losing his job, and later led the
university through eight tumultuous years.
His friends and family remember him as a man of brilliance and
courage.
“In an organization’s history there are people who
stand out as greats, and David is in that group,” said John
Sandbrook, a long-time UCLA administrator and one of Saxon’s
close personal friends.
Saxon stayed active at UCLA until this summer. He would walk
from his Westwood apartment to campus, have lunch at the faculty
center, and go to his office at Knudsen Hall.
“I just don’t like golf,” he joked to the
Daily Bruin in 2003. “This keeps me off the
streets.”
As Saxon’s loved ones and colleagues mourn his loss, they
recall his integrity and dedication to his principles. As an
emeritus professor, he regularly attended faculty meetings, and his
colleagues say he was a great resource.
“Whenever he spoke, everybody listened … He would put
everything in perspective,” said Joseph Rudnick, chairman of
the Physics department.
Rudnick said he went to Saxon for personal and professional
advice because he was “tremendously wise,” but
direct.
“He was a kind person, but he would never sugarcoat
things,” he said.
Born in St. Paul, Minn., in 1920, Saxon completed both a
bachelor’s and doctorate degree at the Massachusetts
Institute of Technology and held several laboratory positions
before coming to UCLA.
Shortly after arriving in Westwood to teach nuclear physics,
Saxon became one of 31 UC professors who were removed from their
posts in 1949 for refusing to sign loyalty oaths ““ contracts
declaring that they were not members of the Communist party.
He and the other professors were reinstated in 1952 when the
California Supreme Court struck down the policy. When he returned
to UCLA, he began an ascent which would eventually lift him to the
presidency of the UC system.
Upon his return, Saxon was made an associate professor, and in
1963 he was appointed chairman of the physics department. He became
dean of physical sciences in 1966, won a distinguished teaching
award in 1967, and then was promoted to the position of executive
vice chancellor .
In 1975, he made the jump to provost of the UC, the
system’s No. 2 position, and the next year he was chosen to
be the fourteenth president of the university.
From 1983 to 1990 he was chairman of the corporation for the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and he was also a professor
emeritus at UCLA from 1983 until his death.
In 1987 the UC Board of Regents named a residential suite
complex in the Northwest corner of UCLA campus after Saxon and his
wife.
Saxon rarely spoke about his decision not to sign the 1949
loyalty oath, but the courage he displayed by not signing it showed
that he was not afraid to speak his mind, and may have contributed
to his quick ascent, said Rudnick, whose parents were friends with
Saxon. He said he first met the former president when he was about
five years old.
Saxon’s stand against the loyalty oath also reflected his
life-long dedication to academic freedom, said Tom Klitzner, a UCLA
pediatric-cardiologist and Saxon’s cousin.
Saxon’s decision not to sign was academic, not political,
he said.
“(Saxon) said he didn’t want to be remembered as the
guy who didn’t sign the loyalty oath, he wanted to be
remembered as a great physicist,” Klitzner said.
Sandbrook expressed a similar sentiment.
“David just felt out of principle that this government
involvement was wrong,” Sandbrook said.
But though he saw himself as a scientist, Saxon’s
influence extended far beyond academia.
As executive vice chancellor at the height of the Vietnam War,
Saxon took a similar principled stance during a faculty debate
regarding the presence of ROTC on campus. Saxon believed that as a
public institution, UCLA had the obligation to the state and to the
public to allow ROTC to recruit, regardless of his personal
beliefs, Sandbrook said.
“(Saxon was) the epitome of academic integrity, academic
freedom, academic responsibility,” Sandbrook said.
Saxon’s decisions were not always popular.
During his eight-year presidency Saxon had to deal with a newly
constrained budget, partly because of Proposition 13, an initiative
which capped property taxes.
This forced the state government to redirect money to local
governments, and therefore indirectly drained money from the
university system, said Ron Heckart, a librarian for the Institute
of Governmental Studies at UC Berkeley.
Proposition 13 set in motion the budgetary balancing act that
the state has been trying to recover from ever since, Heckart
said.
The budgetary problems meant that Saxon was president for the
first major increase in student fees.
While Saxon did make unpopular decisions at times, “he
enjoyed the utmost respect even if people disagreed with
him,” Sandbrook said.
Saxon is survived by his wife, Shirley; his daughters Barbara,
Cathy, Charlotte, Linda, Peggy and Vicky; and six
grandchildren.
A memorial service at UCLA will be planned in 2006.
Saxon’s family asks that donations be given in his
memory to two causes: the David Saxon Physics Graduate Fellowship
Fund, UCLA Foundation, 10920 Wilshire Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90024;
or alternately to the Braille Institute, 741 N. Vermont Ave., Los
Angeles, CA 90029.