If colleges do not defend free speech and open discussion, they are no better than finishing schools, if not blatant propaganda factories that serve neither the nation nor the pursuit of truth, but rather the dominant ideology. But this is becoming the case at American institutions, which consistently shut down professors, researchers, and students who defy conventional thought. How many continue to merit the tremendous public support they continue to receive?
The most recent example is Jay Bhattacharya, a professor of medicine at Stanford who, together with professors from Harvard and Oxford, co-authored the Great Barrington Declaration in 2020, early in the epidemic, highlighting the enormous medical and societal costs of lockdowns.
Approximately 16,000 medical and public-health professionals (many of whom were highly qualified), 47,000 medical practitioners, and 871,000 “concerned individuals” signed on, making it clear that nothing like a scientific consensus supported the direction that the majority of the country had adopted.
Which enraged the authorities. As the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, Dr. Anthony Fauci wielded enormous grant-making authority; he and other important public-health authorities denounced the proclamation as “nonsense,” forcing the majority of the media to ignore or even conceal the argument.
And academic leaders followed suit. As Bhattacharya stated in a conference this month, his life quickly descended into “a terrible nightmare,” and his university, Stanford, failed to support him. Not only did he get death threats and hate mail, but he also encountered a “very unpleasant work atmosphere,” proving that “academic freedom is dead.”
“If Stanford were genuinely devoted to academic freedom,” he said, “it would have pushed to ensure there were debates, discussions, and seminars where these views were debated.”
According to data on lockdowns and COVID fatalities, Bhattacharya & Co. were correct: Sweden, Finland, and Norway, for instance, refused protracted closures and had far less “excess mortality” than the majority of other European states. In the United States, Florida fared as well or better than New York and California, which were largely shuttered.
In sum, Fauci and other public health authorities should have at least examined the potential risks associated with their preferred course of action. The argument “Shut up” is not expected to be persuasive in the scientific community.
Obviously, academia has suppressed “heretics” for quite some time.
Peter Boghossian became a pariah at Portland State University for pointing out the lack of diversity of viewpoints on campus, a response that confirmed his thesis.
Dorian Abbot, a geophysicist at the University of Chicago, had a speech at MIT canceled and his name deleted from scholarly articles and a National Science Foundation grant request. His fault? Coauthor of an opinion piece advocating that admissions procedures should be merit-based.
Since 2015, the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education has documented 591 instances of retaliation against professors with “unpopular” views. Medical schools were compelled to implement woke policies and initiatives. Multiple surveys have revealed that even high school and college students are uncomfortable expressing their honest opinions in public.
It is troubling that cancel culture should not thrive on college campuses. The purpose of higher education is to develop innovative thought, not to impose any ideology other than the classical liberal values of free and open discussion. Universities cannot serve society as a whole if bright minds are prevented from sharing their ideas out of fear of retaliation.
John Tomasi, the head of the pro-free-thinking Heterodox Academy, argues that academia should promote free thought, not impose a single ideology. “Great brains do not necessarily share the same ideas.”
No, unpopular ideas are not always correct, but even when they are incorrect, they can uncover flaws in the prior consensus. And if they are not heard, genuine advancement becomes difficult.
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