Following their counterparts at the University of California last week, members of Stanford University’s Faculty Senate voted late Thursday to reject a proposal to stop accepting research grants from tobacco companies, the San Jose Mercury News reported this morning. The vote was 21 to 10, which was somewhat closer than last week’s tally at the University of California. The California regents are expected to consider the proposal themselves at their next meeting, in July.

Supporters of the proposal at Stanford stressed the importance of taking a moral stand against the tobacco industry, whose record of deceitful advertising and biased research tainted any recipients of its favor today. Opponents of the proposal were led by the university’s president and provost, who said that it jeopardized academic freedom, threatened fund raising for important research all over the university, and represented the first step in a wave of such bans that could affect a host of other research as well. —Andrew Mytelka