The Assembly of the University of California’s Academic Senate overwhelmingly expressed its opposition today to a proposal before the Board of Regents that would ban the acceptance of research grants from the tobacco industry. The 61-member Assembly is the top legislative body of the systemwide senate. Of the 50 Assembly members who participated in today’s balloting, 43 voted to inform the regents that the faculty opposed such a ban. Four members dissented and three abstained.

The regents have not voted on the proposal, which would forbid university researchers to accept industry grants “that are to be used to study tobacco-related diseases, the use of tobacco products, or the individual or societal impacts of such use.” The board is scheduled to meet next week, but one regent has indicated that it is likely to postpone consideration of the tobacco measure until July.

John B. Oakley, the Academic Senate’s chairman, said in an interview with The Chronicle last week that professors who oppose the measure worry that it could lead to a “slippery slope” in which grant money from other controversial sources might also be banned. But proponents of the ban argue that the tobacco industry has a 50-year history of misleading the public with biased scientific results. —Erik Vance