University of Virginia Library

HEAD OF SPANISH DEPARTMENT

Mr. Black, Chairman of a committee to investigate certain charges made by Professor
Clifton Brooke McIntosh of Mary Washington College, presented the following report, which was
approved by the Board.

TO THE BOARD OF VISITORS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA:

The undersigned were appointed as a Committee to investigate certain charges made by
Professor Clifton Brooke McIntosh, Associate Professor of Spanish and Portuguese at Mary Washington
College of the University of Virginia.

Briefly, these charges contained in his letter of December 7th, 1948 were to the effect
that Professor Louis Cabrera, another member of the faculty of Mary Washington College, who has recently
been appointed as head of the Department of Spanish of that institution, had deceived the
Board of Visitors in regard to the authenticity of a degree received by him from Andhra Research
University. Professor McIntosh asserted that by the appointment of Professor Cabrera, the holder
of what he called a "questionable degree", his Ph. D. degree from the University of Virginia had
been repudiated. Both Professors McIntosh and Cabrera on different occasions appeared before the
Board of Visitors and stated their respective positions

We have been unsuccessful in definitely locating Andhra Research University. On the
other hand, there has been no definite statement up to the present date that such a university
does not exist.

We were furnished with a pamphlet entitled "The Establishment of Independence in Brazil
and South America Revisited", written by Dr. Percy A. Martin, Professor of History at Stanford
University, which described itself as issued by Andhra Research University, and listed the officers
of that University. We addressed a letter to Dr. Martin, asking various questions regarding this
University, only to receive a reply from Mrs. May F. Martin that her husband, Percy A. Martin,
had died in March, 1942. She closed her letter with the statement that her husband was very much
of an internationalist and may not have sufficiently scrutinized this Indian University.

Professor Cabrera referred us to Dr. F. M. Dimas-Aruti, a dentist of Washington, D. C.,
who is listed in the Martin pamphlet as a member of the International Faculty of Andhra University,
occupying the position of Councillor at Washington, D. C. He answered our letter referring
to the Martin pamphlet, asserting that the degree was an honorary one, and that he was a good
friend of the Pro Chancellor and Dean of the International Faculty and that he had recommended
Professor Cabrera for the degree, but still with no word of the actual existence of Andhra University

The Committee has corresponded at length with the Division of International Relations,
a Government Bureau, and that Bureau in turn has taken the matter up with the Indian Embassy.
There has been no definite reply from this source as to the existence of this University.

It does not appear to us that the burden of establishing this fact should rest on this
Board. We, therefore, recommend that all reference to the honorary degree from Andhra Research
University be omitted from any publication of Mary Washington College of the University of Virginia
until definite proof of its existence is shown the Board by Professor Cabrera.

In this connection the Committee has investigated the practice of listing honorary degrees
in publications of Universities and Colleges and finds that it is quite customary to do so
without stating that the degree is an honorary degree, since this is self-apparent

In Professor McIntosh's statement to the Board he informed us that Professor Cabrera's
honorary degree must have been represented as an earned degree because on page 14 of the Bulletin
of Faculty Studies of Mary Washington College, the title is given of the dissertation offered in
fulfillment of the degree, and this would remove it from the realm of honorary degrees.

An investigation of this phase of the matter through Professor Cabrera reveals that the
dissertation referred to was voluntarily submitted by Professor Cabrera and was returned to him
with the statement that this being an honorary degree there were no requirements for the submission
of any dissertation, and for that reason the manuscript could not be accepted. If this be
the status of the dissertation we do not believe it should be listed in the publication referred
to above, and we recommend its elimination in all future issues.

The degree in question held by Professor Cabrera was obviously an honorary one. It was
entitled "Doctor of Literature from Andhra Research University, Vizianagaram, South India".

It is perfectly clear that no deception has been practiced by Professor Cabrera. In his
application to Mary Washington College for employment, he answered the Question No. 18 as follows

He does not pretend that this is a Ph. D. degree earned after the carrying out of prescribed
courses.

President Combs tells us that he does not require a Doctor's degree as a prerequisite
for the head of a department, and that Professor Cabrera did not pretend to have such a degree.
He also stated that in his opinion, and he had a close acquaintance with the matter, the charges
preferred by Professor McIntosh were based somewhat on personal feelings growing out of private
affairs between the two men.

Obviously, there are other considerations besides degrees which would play a part in the
selection of the head of a department, and we assume that it was these other considerations which
motivated the appointment of Professor Cabrera and the failure to appoint Professor McIntosh, even
though the latter had a Ph. D. degree, and the former did not.

Under all of the facts of the situation, it is the unanimous opinion of the Committee
that no harm has been done to Professor McIntosh's degree by the occurrences in connection with
the appointment of Professor Cabrera as head of the Spanish Department. Nor do we think that any
deception has been practiced by Professor Cabrera.

The Committee therefore recommends that no action be taken upon Professor McIntosh's
complaint, other than to request Dr. Combs and the administrative authorities of Mary Washington
College to see that no further reference is made in the college catalogue to the honorary degree
of Litt. D. now claimed to be held by Dr. Cabrera until he can satisfy the Board and/or the authorities
at Mary Washington College that Andhra Research University was in fact an established
institution of learning at the time it is purported to have awarded him the degree referred to;
and that the College no longer make reference in the Bulletin of Faculty Studies, or in any other
college publication issued by it, to the fact that Professor Cabrera has offered the above mentioned
dissertation in fulfillment of the requirements of a Ph. D. degree.