I encourage concerned citizens to watch the Stanford Conference on Academic Freedom. This is a historically unique all-star cast of people. It is amazing to watch these discussions on a topic of such fundamental importance that will greatly impact our society. A few highlights from my notes:
Greg Lukianoff, CEO, Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression
Nationwide, 40 professors fired since 2014-2015 for teaching, research, and pedagogy—not for misconduct. By comparison there were 100 – 130 professors fired between 1947 and 1957 during McCarthyism. Additionally, 800 professors charged and 60% punished in some way. In contrast 2001-2012 only one tenured professor fired (for academic misconduct).
Jay Bhattacharya, Professor of Health Policy, Stanford
“On campus a lot of people did not like the scientific fact…and a few months later there was a secret petition written by a member of the department of epidemiology circulated around the medical school… the petition was to the president of the University so that I would be censored.”
Luana Maroja, Professor, Biology at Williams University (MA)
“Each one of us has our own woke tipping point…for me, that moment came during an invited speaker talk when the religious scholar Reza Aslan stated that, ‘We need to write on a stone what can and cannot be discussed on college campuses’ and students gave a standing ovation.”
Mimi St. Johns, Undergrad Student, Stanford, Editor The Stanford Review
“If you want some of the same benefits of being an engineer without having to do the work to be an engineer, you can become one of the DEI managers at Stanford’s school of engineering. The average DEI manager at Stanford School of Engineering actually makes more than the average software engineer in Santa Clara County.”
(In fact, ZipRecruiter says DEI managers have a median salary of $147,000 vs. $127,000 for software engineers in Santa Clara County).
Frances Widdowson, Former Professor, Economics, Justice and Policy studies Mt Royal University (Canada)
“The night I was fired I was lured into a classroom by administrators…they were forcibly confining me. I rushed out, I went back to my office and was pursued by a group of administrators and two security guards. I was so terrorized that evening that I called 911.”
Jordan Peterson (question of Ioannidis)
“Dr. Ioannidis, one of the last graphs you put up really struck me. You showed the proportion of unethical scientists accruing research funding increasing across time as funding cycles increases and the proportion of competent and conscientious scientists decreasing. And that strikes me as something that’s relevant to all of the discussions that we’re having right now…”
Peter Thiel
“What is the antonym of di-versity? Uni-versity.”
Always “steel man” your arguments. Never strawman.
Jerry Coyne, Professor Emeritus, Biology, Chicago
“Every university in this land should adopt The Chicago Principles of Free Speech, The Kalven Report in which institutions remain ideologically, politically, and morally neutral, and the Shils report where merit should be the sole criterion for professional advancement.”
Steven Pinker, Professor of Psychology, Harvard
Said that freedom of expression is fundamental to truth and progress and should not be branded as a left-right issue.
Niall Ferguson, Historian, Author
“University of Austin will attract the best students by being an authentically free university, which does not engage in systematic political discrimination on the basis of a secular religion—progressivism.”