Boston U.'s Scientology connection
By Alex Beam, Globe Staff, 09/16/98

Boston University has the faculty, staff, and financial resources to become one
of the nation's great research institutions. One obstacle in that path has
always been the unpredictable behavior of John Silber, a master builder whose
norms of academic freedom are not universally accepted. It is also hard to take
seriously a university where the president, Jon Westling, lacks the basic
teaching credential - a doctoral degree - required of assistant professors
nationwide.

It is not widely known that the man to whom both Silber and Westling answer is
Boston lawyer Earle Cooley, chairman of the BU board of trustees and chairman
of the board's executive committee. For over a decade, Cooley has zealously
defended the interests of the Church of Scientology, which a 1991 Time magazine
cover story called ''a hugely profitable global racket that survives by
intimidating members and critics in a Mafia-like manner.''

Cooley, a BU alumnus who loves BU and has devoted his time, money, and legal
skills to the university, says - and Silber agrees - that his alliance with
Scientology has never colored his work for what was once one of America's great
Methodist institutions. But whenever Cooley and I discussed the excesses
committed by the church - the harassment of a journalist, for instance - he
said he had no knowledge of illegal activities.

I contend that Cooley is more than ''just'' a lawyer for Scientology. I say he
is deeply allied with one of the great anti-intellectual movements of our time,
and his activities are wildly incompatible with his status as a top official of
a major American university.

Cooley's first high-profile involvement with Scientology came in 1986, when he
attended the deathbed of church founder L. Ron Hubbard. Three days later,
Cooley participated in the first public discussion of Hubbard's death, telling
a gathering of the faithful that ''this mighty Thetan'' (in Scientology lore,
the Thetans were spirits banished to Earth 75 million years ago by a cruel
galactic ruler named Xenu) had decided ''to continue his work outside the
confines of his body.''

During most of the following decade, Cooley served as ''national trial
counsel'' for the church. In 1995, he accompanied federal marshals on a raid of
the house of one of the church's opponents, according to several published
reports. He has criticized Northeastern University for allowing an anonymous
church critic to post anti-Scientology messages using Northeastern's computers.
He has said more than once that journalists and others who investigate the
church should not be surprised to find themselves investigated.

This has become a self-fulfilling prophecy. While Cooley was waging a vigorous
pre-publication campaign against the Time cover story, a private investigator
working for the church illegally obtained reporter Richard Behar's credit
report. Cooley told me he knew the reporter was being investigated, but said he
had no role in obtaining the credit report.

Cooley issued the same warning about being investigated to Boston Herald
reporter Joseph Mallia, in connection with a series that was printed this
spring. Indeed, the Herald reported that a private investigator for the church
contacted Mallia's ex-wife seeking ''derogatory information.''

''I didn't retain any investigator,'' says Cooley, who is generally careful to
distinguish the activities of his client from his own affairs. Although he says
he has been correctly quoted on the subject of his church membership in the
past, when he spoke openly about being a Scientologist, he won't discuss it
now. ''That question is inappropriate,'' he says. ''It suggests a litmus test
as to whether I'm a credible person or not.''