BY JOHN K. WILSON
In an extraordinary attack on academic freedom, three fellows from Stanford’s conservative Hoover Institution–Scott Atlas, Niall Ferguson, Victor Davis Hanson–are demanding censorship of faculty and the student newspaper in order to silence criticism of themselves. They write in an article at the Stanford Review (a conservative student publication),
“as individuals we now seek meaningful reassurances that these unwarranted attacks on our reputations will no longer be legitimized by some in the Faculty Senate and disseminated by the student newspaper.” They do not define what “meaningful reassurances” are, or why anyone involved in a public controversy at a university would be entitled to them. But this seems to be a clear demand for censorship of these “attacks.” A demand to prevent criticism from being “disseminated” by the independent student newspaper in perfectly normal reporting is a call for censorship. Likewise, a demand that criticism “will no longer be legitimized” by members of the Faculty Senate is also a call for censorship, despite the odd choice of language.
The Hoover fellows have an extremely misguided idea of academic freedom: “What is the purpose of academic freedom? Is it to allow all kinds of ideas to be expressed and explored, protecting even speech that people in the past considered heretical—protecting free expression that some people today would like to ‘cancel’? Or is it to allow co-workers in the ideological minority to be personally and selectively disparaged with impunity?”
The answer, of course, is both. Their belief that academic freedom must prohibit (if you’re a conservative minority) being “disparaged with impunity” is disturbing. The right to disparage is a fundamental right at any university.
But the Hoover fellows are not the only ones at Stanford with a misguided vision of academic freedom. In fact, I was preparing a critique of the Stanford faculty who criticized the Hoover fellows, for their bad ideas about academic freedom, only to be distracted by an even worse approach to academic freedom by those Hoover fellows. So here it is:
Academic Freedom Is Not a Privilege
The report to the Faculty Senate about the Hoover Institution, written by Stanford professors Joshua Landy, Stephen Monismith, David Palumbo-Liu, and David Spiegel, Is an extensive document, but I want to focus only on one small section titled “Academic Freedom Is a Privilege.”\
The section begins, “Academic freedom is a privilege, and it is dependent on the complementary principle of using knowledge in a responsible manner, and to make the world a better place for everyone.”
I strongly disagree. Academic freedom is not a privilege. It is a right, and it is a principle. It is not dependent on “using knowledge in a responsible manner” nor is it dependent on someone making “the world a better place for everyone.” Why not? These are extraordinarily vague and subjective standards: what ideas are “responsible”? Which thoughts will make the world better for anyone, let alone everyone? Who do we trust to judge which beliefs should be allowed to be heard?
The faculty report argues, “Yes, with rights, come responsibilities. We believe that the same should hold at the Hoover. If Hoover fellows want to lean on the Stanford name, they should take on the responsibility that comes along with that, a responsibility to uphold standards of academic excellence, rather than cutting corners in the service of a partisan agenda.”
It is partly true that “with rights come responsibilities.” At least it acknowledges that academic freedom is a right, not a privilege. But when it comes to extramural utterances, those responsibilities are moral ideals, not professional obligations. Professors should use their freedom in good ways, to promote intellectual advancement, liberty of thought, and the search for truth. But the failure to meet high standards for public expression is not a violation of professional responsibilities that can be punished. We must protect the freedom of academics to fall short of academic excellence when they make a comment, or send a tweet, or express an opinion, or pursue a partisan agenda. Cutting corners is not a crime. Getting something wrong is not the basis for academic punishment.
I also worry about this obsession that faculty or fellows who express an opinion might “lean on the Stanford name” and must meet some enforceable standards of “responsibility.” If Stanford can punish controversial staffers who offend someone out of concern for the university’s reputation, it’s a dangerous threat to academic freedom–and Palumbo-Liu would probably be among the leading people Stanford’s leaders wish they could get rid of.
According to their report, “Academic freedom is earned and respected when we set, exemplify, and enforce the standards for it.” Academic freedom does not need to be earned. It belongs to everyone at an institution of higher education. We respect academic freedom when we defend it for everyone, and not merely those who express respected ideas with respectable manners. Enforcing academic “standards” for extramural utterances is a severe threat to academic freedom that the AAUP rejected over 50 years ago in its fundamental principles with the 1969 Interpretive Comments.
The faculty report argues, “Irresponsible speech becomes dangerous when cloaked in the appearance of scientific medical academic discourse that it does not deserve.” That’s true. And I agree with them that Atlas’ anti-scientific nonsense, when peddled to idiots in the White House, was not only dangerous, but deadly. Nevertheless, Atlas’ speech should be protected from censorship. Sometimes, speech is irresponsible and even dangerous. Bad ideas have real consequences. But censorship doesn’t make us safer. Punishing Atlas wouldn’t prevent the harm caused by Donald Trump embracing his dumb ideas. But it would create an atmosphere where speech that exposes harm might be censored as well. We need to refute bad ideas, not seek to punish them.
The faculty report claims, “This repeated combination of political bias with pseudoscience is toxic and has no place at Stanford.” I strongly disagree. Political bias definitely has a place at Stanford, and the attempt to silence “political bias” (whether left or right) is a danger to academic freedom. The word “pseudoscience” is simply a way of saying, “I strongly disagree.” The Hoover fellows who have expressed bad ideas deserve the criticism they have received. But we must never seek to ban people with an unpopular political bias from a university.
The faculty report does not clearly advocate for censorship in the same way that the Hoover fellows do in their response. Instead, the report merely advocates for the Faculty Senate to scrutinize the Hoover Institution. But the flawed arguments made in this report do seem to provide justification for banning Hoover and its fellows from Stanford, and express a vision of academic freedom which is (like the vision advocated by the Hoover fellows) dangerously narrow.
“Sometimes, speech is irresponsible and even dangerous. Bad ideas have real consequences.” And some people are more likely to be the victims of those consequences than others. Right now those victims would be people who listened to Atlas’s misguided advice, offered with the imprimatur of Stanford. Other victims of the bad ideas of the Trump era, given cover by the bad ideas of John Eastman and others, are the victims of anti-Asian and anti-Black racism. It is the role of a university to distinguish between good and bad ideas. That’s why we have processes like the elaborate peer-review protocols of the tenure system. AAUP has always said that academic freedom is for the common good — so, yes, to make the world a better place. That there is no foolproof and completely ideology-free way to adjudicate ideas doesn’t mean that Faculty Senates get to absolve themselves of responsibility and knowingly let peers misuse their credentials to peddle bad, harmful ideas with tragic consequences.
It is the role of a university to distinguish between good and bad academic work, but that is definitely not the same as punishing anyone who ever expresses “bad ideas” in their extramural utterances. The AAUP says that academic freedom is for the common good, not that academic freedom is subservient to the common good. The principle is that we make the world a better place by allowing bad ideas to be expressed, even though bad ideas, if implemented, might make the world worse. And the AAUP has always asserted that a simple acknowledgement of one’s academic employer is not a misuse of credentials. Although I believe administrators and Faculty Senates have the freedom to denounce fellow faculty, I do not think it is their responsibility (and it is sometimes used to intimidate controversial professors). Instead I believe that individual faculty (such as the four Stanford professors) should be the ones to speak out against harmful ideas.
We can’t check “Like” in this system anymore, but if I could have I would have. Thank you for this.
There’s a bit more to this story if you read carefully the Hoover member letter. This is not a debate over free speech and simple academic freedom. The best definition of that concept is by one of your contributors from the University of Nebraska, David Moshman: “Academic freedom is the freedom to do academic work” (and see his paper, Moshman, David, “Academic Freedom as the Freedom to do Academic Work” (2017). Faculty Publications, Department of Psychology. https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/psychfacpub/1038). I don’t think otherwise that the “attack letter” from Stanford faculty, passes that test. Moreover, it doesn’t take up a fact case; it accuses one Hoover member of being an effective accessory to murder. If that doesn’t demand rebuttal, and retraction, I don’t know what does. That isn’t “silencing” as you assert; it is correction and the restoration of reputation and personal identity. In addition, the entire Capital event has not been investigated and many parties are speculating, and opportunistically accusing their political counterparts, without forensically verified facts. That is an abandonment of the most fundamental principles of social science research, and rational empiricism. The three writers are therefore also defending standards of academic scholarship and behavior. They are right. If this were in a UK legal domain, the Stanford faculty would be successfully tried for libel. The Hoover members should otherwise just bring a complaint in law against the Stanford faculty; possibly others in administration; and in that act, free speech is also served, and the positions and facts put fully in the public domain.
I am all in favor of rebuttals, and completely against forced retractions of opinions someone dislikes, which certainly sounds like “silencing” to me. I agree that some people are abandoning rational empiricism, but I don’t think it’s those who believe the obvious fact that right-wing extremists attacked the Capitol. Even in the UK, I very much doubt that a libel case would be successful, but we should have higher standards of free expression. And, no, free speech is not served by academics threatening libel suits because someone criticizes them.
John, you are one of the best free-speech advocates in the public domain, and in academia, but your assertion that it is an “…obvious fact that right-wing extremists attacked the Capitol” is perhaps the core of the contention among the parties: it isn’t obvious at all; no one actually knows for sure yet just who these ‘attackers” were, or are, as no actual third-party investigation has been undertaken yet. There are serious accusations on both “sides.” The Stanford professors are assuming the newspaper stories are correct. They may not be. Even if they are, you can’t accuse Victor Hansen of effective attempted murder merely because he is conservative, and the media is framing the entire issue as universal conservative culpability, which is an astounding breakdown in logic and law. The Stanford professors come across as a lynch mob. I agree that they have free speech rights, but I wonder if by their speech they are in fact inciting others against Hoover, and showing students that such accusations can be made with no responsibility?
> The right to disparage is a fundamental right at any university.
On this, I am at one with Prof. Wilson. Not many of the communications that clutter up my inbox, on a twice-weekly basis or thereabouts, from the AAUP indicate that that view is at present widely shared within the Association. I should be glad to receive more evidence—that is to say, beyond what one finds buried in blogposts like these—that I am incorrect about that.