A geophysicist and professor at the University of Chicago who was scheduled to talk about climate change at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) was blocked from speaking after faculty members and graduate students protested. The angry response was not because of the content of his proposed speech but because Dorian Abbot, who is white, has written in the past about his belief that while diverse selection pools are a good thing, the best person should win the prize based not on race but on merit.
Abbot’s past writings put him at odds with popular ideologies of leftists, like affirmation action and programs to promote diversity.
“Besides freedom of speech, we have the freedom to pick the speaker who best fits our needs,” Robert van der Hilst, the head of the earth, atmospheric and planetary sciences department at M.I.T., said in a New York Times report. “Words matter and have consequences.”
Hellbound and Down 