Tag: universities

Professors: Free Speech And Intellectual Diversity Are Not Essential To Higher Education

In “The Indispensable Right,” I discuss how academics are now leading an anti-free speech movement on campuses that challenges the centrality (or even the necessity) of free speech protections in higher education. The latest such argument appeared this month in the Chronicle of Higher Education.

Two Arizona State University professors — Richard Amesbury and Catherine O’Donnell — wrote that free speech concerns yield too much to the “right wing” and that free speech should not be given the protection currently afforded by universities and colleges. Indeed, they argue that free speech may be harming higher education by fostering “unworthy” ideas.

Amesbury teaches religious studies and O’Donnell teaches history at ASU. They wrote an article titled “Dear Administrators: Enough with the Free Speech Rhetoric! It Concedes Too Much to the Right-Wing Agenda.”

The two academics challenge the long-held view of the centrality of free speech to higher education. Notably, many of us have been alarmed by the erosion of free speech on our campuses, but Amesbury and O’Donnell seem to worry that there is still too much protection for opposing views. Worse yet, they suggest that the free speech objections are often part of a right-wing funded agenda.

In fairness, to the two professors, they do not reject the overall value of free speech, but challenge “the assumptions that free speech is a cardinal virtue of higher education, and that colleges should aspire to a diversity of opinions.” They insist that higher education is about finding truth and that means that false ideas are inimical to our mission as educators. Indeed, they question the need for “intellectual diversity”:

Our contention is that calls for greater freedom of speech on campuses, however well-intentioned, risk undermining colleges’ central purpose, namely, the production of expert knowledge and understanding, in the sense of disciplinarily warranted opinion. Expertise requires freedom of speech, but it is the result of a process of winnowing and refinement that is premised on the understanding that not all opinions are equally valid. Efforts to “democratize” opinion are antithetical to the role colleges play in educating the public and informing democratic debate. We urge administrators toward caution before uncritically endorsing calls for intellectual diversity in place of academic expertise…

A diversity of opinion — “intellectual diversity” — isn’t itself the goal; rather, it is of value only insofar as it serves the goal of producing knowledge. On most unanswered questions, there is, at least initially, a range of plausible opinions, but answering questions requires the vetting of opinions. As some opinions are found wanting, the range of opinion deserving of continued consideration narrows.

As a threshold matter, what is so striking about this argument against intellectual diversity is that it is made at a time with little such diversity in most departments. Seeking a wider range of viewpoints on departments does not “concedes too much to the right-wing agenda.” It acknowledges a growing problem across higher education, It is an educational agenda that has prompted many of us to raise the reduction of intellectual diversity.

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Government Gives Billions in Grants Each Year to Ivy League Universities

A new report from government watchdog organization OpenTheBooks.com tallies up federal money issued to 10 elite private universities: the eight that make up the Ivy League—Harvard, Yale, Brown, Princeton, University of Pennsylvania, Columbia, Cornell, and Dartmouth College—plus Northwestern and Stanford.

Between 2018–2022, these 10 universities received $33.1 billion in federal contracts and grants. The largest recipient was Stanford, with just over $7 billion; Dartmouth was the only institution not to receive at least $1 billion, capping out at just over $755 million.

Of the $33 billion total, the report notes, only about $4.18 billion came in the form of contracts, in which work is done on behalf of a federal agency that then owns the results; the remainder, more than $28.9 billion, was distributed as grants, whereby an institution receives government money to fund its own projects.

In some cases, universities receive more money per year from the government than from their students: In the 2021–22 school year, Princeton University took in nearly $145 million in net tuition and fees (tuition paid minus scholarships disbursed), but it received over $362 million in government grants and contracts—more than twice the amount it received in tuition. In the 2022–2023 school year, Yale took in more than $458 million in net tuition and room and board costs, but it brought in a whopping $1.038 billion in government grant and contract income.

As private institutions, the universities in question are nominally meant to be funded by student tuition and donations; most also have generous endowments, assets invested to support the institution over a long period of time. And federal grant programs exist that are intended to fund research into projects that could have larger societal benefits: For example, the first COVID-19 vaccines were developed in part at Emory University and Vanderbilt University, with funding from the National Institutes of Health.

But the endowments themselves cast doubt on whether this money is truly necessary. As the OpenTheBooks.com report notes, in the five years during which the 10 universities in question received over $33 billion in government funds, they also grew their collective endowments by $64.8 billion. Stanford, which took in over $7 billion in government funds, grew its endowment from $26.5 billion to $36.5 billion over the same period.

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Yes, Anti-Israel Protests Are Free Speech

Last Friday, a group of college students penned a guest essay in The New York Times arguing that the wave of anti-Israel, pro-Palestine activity on many college campuses isn’tA New legitimate free expression—and that universities have a “moral responsibility” to combat it.

“Free speech, open debate and heterodox views lie at the core of academic life,” wrote Gabriel Diamond, Talia Dror, and Jillian Lederman, students at Yale, Cornell, and Brown respectively. “They are fundamental to educating future leaders to think and act morally. The reality on some college campuses today is the opposite: open intimidation of Jewish students. Mob harassment must not be confused with free speech.”

The authors point out several examples of clearly unprotected speech that have unfolded in recent weeks, such as online posts made by a Cornell student who threatened to “shoot up” a kosher dining hall, as well as several instances of physical violence against Jewish students.

However, many of the other examples the authors single out are blatantly First Amendment–protected expression.

“Masked students have chanted slogans such as ‘From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free,’ which many view as a call for the destruction of Israel. Others have shouted, ‘There is only one solution, intifada revolution,'” they write. Additionally, Diamond, Dror, and Lederman noted several examples of professors who made offensive statements about the terrorist attack, lamenting that “to the best of our knowledge, none of these professors have received meaningful discipline, much less dismissal.”

Despite their claimed commitments, the authors make a plain-faced call for censorship by invoking university speech codes.

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Archaeology’s woke trend: Obtain consent from someone who’s dead to study their bones

There’s an eerie new theory filling academia’s ivied walls – the living and the dead are the same. This latest argument against the use of human skeletal remains in research and teaching, which I’ve come across in person (from students who attended my talk at Brown University, an elite Ivy League college), proposes that the only ethical treatment of skeletal collections is to treat the dead like the living. I’ve seen this same argument, which is applied to prehistoric and historic anthropological collections used to reconstruct past peoples’ lives, in conference programs and on museum websites.

Those researchers interested in examining past populations through the study of human remains, thus, should be required to follow the same ethical guidelines as medical researchers who conduct their work on living people. We need to gather consent forms. The Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History took down their Written in Bone website that explored ways anthropologists looked at 17th-century residents of the Chesapeake Bay Area, which included colonists, African slaves, and European immigrants. This was because it had come to their attention that they had no consent forms from these people who died 300-years ago!

Interested in studying the past through bones? Now, you must also provide evidence that there are safeguards in place to avoid harming these long-dead individuals. And, researchers of past populations, regardless of how old these collections are, should be required to incorporate HIPAA (the law that provides living patients with privacy concerning their medical records) regulations into their research methods. Of course, it’s a bit difficult to get consent from someone who’s dead. Yet, the repatriation and reburial activists see this as just the right tool to bury the zombified remains whose, last wishes they assume, were to be reburied.

Could there be other tactics to get around these ethical issues? Maybe universities should start employing spirit mediums to run seances to ensure that we can connect with the dead, ask them questions, and get that much-needed consent form signed; can a ghost sign a paper?

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Florida’s DeSantis bans pro-Palestinian group from state campuses

Florida’s university system, working with Governor Ron DeSantis, ordered colleges on Tuesday to shut down a pro-Palestinian student organization, marking the first U.S. state to outlaw the group whose national leadership backed Hamas’ attack on Israel.

The State University System of Florida said chapters of Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) had to be dismantled as part of a “crack down” in the Republican-led state on campus demonstrations that provide “harmful support for terrorist groups.”

“Based on the National SJP’s support of terrorism, in consultation with Governor DeSantis, the student chapters must be deactivated,” the system’s Chancellor Ray Rodrigues wrote in a memo to university leaders.

SJP is active in at least two Florida universities, Rodrigues said.

The University of North Florida in Jacksonville and Florida State University in Tallahassee have SJP chapters, based on Instagram sites. The National SJP did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Tensions between pro-Israeli and pro-Palestinian students have led to harassment and assaults at U.S. universities since Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack and Israel’s siege and bombardment of the Gaza Strip.

Administrators at some U.S. universities criticized the National SJP after it called Hamas’ attack “a historic win for the Palestinian resistance” and called for a “day of resistance” on Oct. 12 with demonstrations by its chapters at over 200 colleges in America and Canada.

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Academic Complicity in the Censorship Industry: The Case of Kate Starbird

The U.S. Congress has recently heard a report from the House Judiciary Committee which presents disturbing allegations about U.S. Government involvement in surveillance and censorship focused on citizens’ social media activities. The report raises concerns about breaches of the U.S. Constitution’s First Amendment guaranteeing freedom of speech. Something highlighted by the report is the role played by University of Washington academic, Dr Kate Starbird.

The attention this has drawn to an individual academic has been condemned in the press as politically-driven and unwarranted harassment. In the Washington Post, Naomi Nix and Joseph Menn (2023) refer to a ‘deluge of bad information about disinformation researchers’ work’ that ‘has led to a torrent of digital harassment’. That concern has been shared by a number of academics who see it also as an indirect assault on academic freedom.

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Stanford Lecturer Suspended After Separating Jewish Students, Labeling Them As ‘Colonizers’

A lecturer at Stanford University has been suspended after he allegedly forced Jewish students to stand in a corner while labeling them as “colonizers.” He also praised and justified the recent terrorist attacks carried out by Hamas, referring to the jihadist group as “freedom fighters.”

Students told the San Francisco Chronicle that the professor, who has been identified as Ameer Hasan Loggins, opened two classes on Tuesday by stating that the day’s lesson would focus on “colonialism.” He then proceeded to blame the current conflict on “Zionists” and justified last weekend’s terrorist attacks that left more than 1,300 Israelis and at least 27 Americans dead, stating that they were a necessary part of “the resistance.”

The teacher then asked Jewish students to identify themselves before ordering them to stand in a corner, stating that this is what they were doing to Palestinians, said Nourya Cohen, a co-president of Stanford’s Israeli Student Association. “He asked how many Jews died in the Holocaust,” Cohen said. When one student said six million, the professor said, “Yes. Only six million.”

“Colonizers killed more than 6 million. Israel is a colonizer,” the lecturer reportedly said.

Rabbi Dov Greenberg, director of the Chabad Stanford Jewish Center, spoke to three students from the class and told the Jewish news outlet Forward that they were afraid to speak out over fears of repercussions. “He said, ‘Hamas is a legitimate representation of the Palestinian people,’” Greenberg told the outlet. “‘They are not a terrorist group. They are freedom fighters. Their actions are legitimate.’”

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Jewish NYC Councilwoman Inna Vernikov arrested for carrying gun at pro-Palestinian rally

Republican Brooklyn Councilwoman Inna Vernikov was arrested Thursday when she was spotted toting a firearm at a pro-Palestinian rally— resulting in calls for her to be removed from office.

The councilwoman, who is Jewish and has spoken out against pro-Palestinian supporters, was in attendance as protesters convened on the campus of CUNY’s Brooklyn College Thursday.

“[Vernikov] was observed with the but-end of a firearm (handgun) protruding from the front portion of her pants” while observing the protest between noon and 2:45 p.m. Thursday, police sources told The Post.

“The Councilwoman eventually left the location and upon notification to police, the Councilwoman was contacted and she turned herself in to the 70 Precinct, in the company of her attorney [around 2:50 a.m. Friday],” the sources continued.

The 39-year-old was arrested and charged with possession of a firearm because she was on school grounds, the sources said.

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Washington U. Prof: AI Girlfriends Are Ruining a Generation of Men

The rise of AI girlfriends is ruining an entire generation of young men by fostering a silent epidemic of loneliness, according to Washington University Professor of Data Science Liberty Vittert.

There are now apps that offer virtual girlfriends for men who want an AI lover to talk to them, allow them to live out their sexual fantasies, and learn, through data, exactly what they like, according to a op-ed written by Washington U. professor Liberty Vittert and published by the Hill.

These apps reportedly have millions of users, who are able to choose the physical attributes and personalities of their virtual girlfriends.

Some of the artificial lovers are even based on real people. One online influencer, for example, created an AI bot of herself and gained over 1,000 users in less than a week. She believes the AI girlfriend version of herself can generate $5 million a month.

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Former Yale student cleared to sue accuser over false allegations

A former Yale student who was kicked out of the school in 2019 after being accused and acquitted of rape in 2018 can now sue his accuser for defamation over statements she made during a school hearing on the matter after a Connecticut Supreme Court ruling over the summer.

According to the New York Post, 30-year-old Saifullah Khan has had a $110 million defamation lawsuit pending against the school since 2019, and has been fighting to bring his accuser into the suit.

In June, the state’s supreme court granted Khan’s request, and ruled that the accuser, a fellow student, shouldn’t receive “qualified immunity” from her testimony in a school hearing that Khan raped her after a 2015 Halloween party.

Qualified immunity protects people from being sued over statements they make in judicial cases, but the court ruled that the university hearing wasn’t a stand-in court proceeding, since Khan wasn’t allowed the chance to cross-examine his accuser.

“For absolute immunity to apply under Connecticut law,” the June decision states, “fundamental fairness requires meaningful cross-examination in proceedings like the one at issue.”

Khan’s team listened during the referenced hearing to the woman’s testimony from a separate room, never being able to cross-examine her. The ruling said Khan’s defense attorney was left to act as a “potted plant.”

The court said that Yale’s hearing couldn’t be considered “quasi-judicial” because the woman wasn’t made to testify under oath, and Khan wasn’t provided with a transcript of the testimony.

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