ABSTRACT
The “one-fifth rule” that was invented as a compromise to resolve the dispute over consultation at MIT has become so much a taken-for-granted aspect of US academia that its origins have largely been forgotten. It has been accepted as normative at virtually every university in this country. The existence of this rule legitimated a parallel activity that could otherwise have been defined as a conflict of interest. The one-fifth rule ensured that the university-industry relations could proceed in a relatively uncontroversial way on this issue of consulting because a well-defined stringent limiting rule was in place.
