Introspection Before Any Possible Course Correction

“I talked to and argued with groups from academia, from the media, from the financial community, from the foundation world, from you name it. I was appalled at what I found. There was an unbelievable degree of intellectual homogeneity, of acceptance of a standard set of views complete with cliche answers to every objection, of smug self-satisfaction at belonging to an in-group.” - Milton Friedman, Two Lucky People

In the final weeks of 2023, many watched the Congressional testimony of the presidents of Harvard University, the University of Pennsylvania (Penn), and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) with horror. The three presidents were asked whether chants calling for the genocide of the Jewish people violated student codes of conduct at their respective universities. Calling for the genocide of a population is evil - pure and simple. While the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution protects free speech, even those statements we find evil, it does not prevent anyone from speaking against that evil speech, refusing to associate with the speakers, or grant immunity from time, place, and manner restrictions on a college campus (i.e., codes of conduct). One must also note that private colleges are not bound by the First Amendment, but they may choose to implement such statements as the Chicago Principles. 

Each university president correctly explained free speech. The dividing line concerning the U.S. Constitution is if the speech encourages immediate lawlessness and illegal action is likely. From the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE):

“In order for speech to lose protected status, the Supreme Court ruled [in a 1969 court case Brandonburg v. Ohio] that there had to be evidence that the language in question is being used to encourage immediate lawlessness and that illegal action is likely to take place, for example, if an incendiary public speaker points at a specific building and tells an angry mob to go burn it down while handing out matches.”

Whether or not the speech of the students violated the time, place, and manner restrictions presented by the code of conduct at any university is a different question and has been discussed elsewhere. Potential code of conduct violations are not what bothered me. What struck me when listening to the Congressional testimony on December 5, 2023, is that all three presidents, while seeming to understand free speech in concept, do not recognize that their universities do not apply those concepts evenly. There have been notable cancellation attempts at all three universities in just the last few years for far more innocuous speech than recent campus protests (more on that below). The plain hypocrisy on display in the hearing was jarring, but I was also struck by the reaction of academia in the weeks after. 

Following the Congressional testimony, Penn’s President Liz McGill was forced to resign her position, Harvard and Penn both lost millions in donations, and there was public outcry against all three universities. Most recently, Harvard’s President Claudine Gay also resigned from her position, Harvard has now been sued over the alleged antisemitic campus climate, and a donor has suspended donations to Cornell University. In the face of such events and pushback from donors, the public, and government entities, one might think that the three universities, and indeed all universities, would examine themselves and consider where things have gone awry. I certainly thought that this would be a kick in the ass for higher education (and the scientists there) to at least consider what they have done to lose public trust as several surveys have shown. For example:

1. A Pew Research Poll in late 2023 found that only 57% of Americans say that science has a positive impact on society (the lowest level in 7 years of the poll) and 27% of Americans have little to no trust in scientists (up from 14% in 2020). 

2. A US News and Harris Poll in 2023 found that only 45% of Americans trust university leaders to do the right thing for their students, and 56% of Americans think that university leaders are not good examples of leaders for students.

3. A Gallup Poll in 2023 found that 68% of Americans have little to no confidence in higher education. This is up 26% from 2015. This includes a 36% drop in confidence among Republicans, a 16% drop in confidence among independents, and a 9% drop in confidence among Democrats.

None of the surveys above were designed to determine why public trust in higher education has fallen. However, I find it hard to believe this demonstrable fall in trust is solely the result of outside influence manipulating public perception, particularly as trust has fallen among all political viewpoints. I find it hard to believe that recent actions in multiple states including Oklahoma, Texas, Florida, and others are because nefarious characters are manipulating the public to hate universities. As a scientist, I want to know more. 

Surveys done by multiple groups suggest that the universities themselves bear at least some of the blame. Consider the following survey results about the climate on university campuses:

1. The FIRE 2022 Academic Mind Report found that 52% of university faculty (and 72% of conservative faculty) are worried about losing their jobs or reputation because things they say will be taken out of context, and 34% say they often feel they can not express their opinions because of how students, colleagues, or the administration would respond. In addition, 91% of surveyed professors say they are at least somewhat likely to self-censor their speech on social media, in class, or online.  

2. The 2024 College Free Speech Rankings (FIRE and the College Pulse)

   1. Harvard is ranked the worst university in the country for campus free expression, 53% of students have admitted to self-censoring on campus, and 58% of students worry about reputational damage over a misunderstanding. Examples from students in the survey:

      1. “Students love to cancel each other in the name of wokeness” - Class of 2023

      2. “...I felt very alone… Even opinions I possess that are moderate or even left leaning on the national scale seem relatively unaccepted among the student body. It is an incredibly difficult and isolating political landscape to navigate for someone who is not left wing.” - Class of 2024

   2. Penn is ranked as the second worst, 51% of students report self-censoring, and 55% worry about reputational damage over a misunderstanding. Examples from students in the survey:

      1. “I have taken a few political science classes, and I am worried for my grade when I want to express an opinion that is different.” - Class of 2025

      2. “Lack of support for Jewish issues. Antisemitism is not thought of as a valid issue.” - Class of 2024

   3. MIT is ranked in the bottom half, 43% of students say they self-censor, and 59% of students worry about reputational damage over a misunderstanding.  Examples from surveyed students at MIT:

      1. “I have very conservative views that are well-constructed and science based, not just faith based, yet these views are often seen as hateful. I fear getting shot down immediately without being able to explain myself and been seen as sexist, homophobic, etc., even though those things couldn’t be further from reality.” - Class of 2025

      2. “One of my graduate professors gave me a bad grade on my paper because my take on the prompt was against his beliefs, and he took it personally and attempted to critique my abilities rather than the content of the paper.” - Class of 2024

   4. University of Oklahoma - My institution also ranks in the bottom half, 51% of students say they self-censor, and 64% of students worry about reputational damage over a misunderstanding. From the surveyed students at OU:

      1. “Pretty much every day I have to suppress my thoughts on issues, even though my political ideas are not extreme. Cancel culture and silencing are prevalent at OU.” - Class of 2024

      2. “As a Republican on campus it is rare that I can voice any sort of opinion without being judged right away. Even just saying I’m a Republican would cause others not to like me as much.” - Class of 2024

3. The 2022 Campus Expression Survey from Heterodox Academy - 63.2% of students say the climate on campus prevents people from saying what they believe for fear of offending someone and 62.3% of students self-censor out of fear of their fellow students.

4. The Center for the Study of Partisanship and Ideology 2021 report - 70% of conservative academics in the U.S. report a hostile departmental climate and one-third of conservative academics and PhD students reported being threatened with disciplinary action for expressing their views. In addition, up to 62% of conservative-leaning students are also hesitant to attend graduate school because of the perceived hostile environment. 

5. The Legatum Institute 2022 Report Is Academic Freedom Under Threat? - Across the U.S., U.K., Canada, and Australia, 76% of academics identify as left-wing, and 11% identify as right-wing. In addition, 35% of left-wing academics feel the need to self-censor their views, while 75% of right-wing academics feel the same. Finally, 45% of left-wing academics think academic freedom should be prioritized over social justice ideology, while 91% of right-wing academics feel the same. 

Aside from the surveys, there are numerous reports of universities disciplining or “canceling” professors for expressing opinions or engaging in specific actions related to their work. Consider the following:

• Tabia Lee was fired from her position as a Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) director at De Anza Community College after refusing to use racial stereotyping in her work at the college. 

• Carole Hooven was forced to resign from Harvard University after stating on television that sex is binary, which she draws from her expertise as a biologist. 

• Bret Weinstein was forced to resign from Evergreen State University when he refused to participate in a “day of absence” (which he believed amounted to racial segregation on campus) and being critical of other DEI initiatives. His wife, Heather Heying, also resigned after filing tort claims against the university while standing in support of her husband. Both were subject to threats and harassment by students and disciplinary actions and investigation by the university administration. The tension on campus resulted in riots at Evergreen State University in 2017 (the entire Evergreen fiasco is documented extensively by Benjamin Boyce). 

• Amy Wax has been the subject of multiple attempts to discipline and fire her from Penn over her opinions on multiple topics from 2017 through 2023. 

• Dorian Abbot - Professor of Geophysical Sciences at the University of Chicago has been targeted twice. Professor Abbot challenged the DEI policies at his university and more broadly in published op-eds. In response, students at the University of Chicago attempted to have Professor Abbot’s faculty privileges revoked, and the MIT Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences Department rescinded an invitation to give the prestigious Carlson Lecture. The University of Chicago ultimately defended Professor Abbot.

• Maitland Jones was fired from New York University after students moved to oust him over their organic chemistry grades not being high enough. This is despite Professor Jones going to extraordinary lengths to provide time, space, and resources to assist his organic chemistry students.

• Peter Boghossian - For his part in speaking out against illiberalism at universities and the corruption of specific disciplines, Professor Boghossian was forced to resign his position at Portland State University after being subject to numerous disciplinary hearings by administrators and harassment by students. Professor Boghossian was one of three scholars who participated in the Grievance Studies Affair in 2017 and 2018. 

• Ronald Sullivan was forced to resign as dean of the Winthrop House at Harvard University over his decision to represent Harvey Weinstein in court. 

• Lawrence Summers was forced to resign as president of Harvard University over comments made about women in STEM.

• Mike Adams was forced into early retirement from UNC Wilmington after his expressed opinions online (in his personal capacity) caused an uproar and subsequent harassment. Professor Adams committed suicide shortly before his official retirement from the university. 

• Carol Swain was forced to resign from Vanderbilt University after writing an op-ed criticizing Islam.

• There are more than 1000 incidences in the Scholars under Fire Database (maintained by FIRE, including those mentioned above).

If you wonder why I am using surveys and news reports, that is because this is all there is to work with. Despite the demonstrable concern in the last few years, the social science community has not made a concerted effort to study the relationship between the campus climate, cancellation instances, and the fall of public trust in higher education. 

Regardless, the aforementioned surveys and reports suggest that how universities have conducted themselves has contributed in part to the fall in public trust. The Congressional testimony and the events following it could have awakened many to this problem and provided an opportunity to address it. Strangely, the public pushback on universities has caused the opposite reaction. The faculty of multiple universities decried the backlash and resulting actions as attacks on academic freedom by right-wing actors or the state and urged resistance to it. In one notable exchange on Twitter (now X), I noticed that when asked to consider introspection and examine internal problems at universities, the American Association of University Professors (AAUP) responded with a wild claim that the narrative that students and faculty are uncomfortable speaking on campus was somehow manufactured by the Koch brothers (🤦). 

The AAUP was one of many to speak against any backlash on the grounds of preserving academic freedom and free speech while simultaneously ignoring available evidence suggesting that higher education has a significant internal problem with academic freedom and free speech. These include the following:

• Claudine Gay herself refused to take responsibility for anything following her resignation

• A slew of academics looking at everything except academia for the problem

• Minimizing plagiarism rather than condemning it

• Blaming donors and public pushback itself

• Blaming billionaires 

• Blaming political interference

• Responding to requests to consider ways to enhance viewpoint diversity as an attack on the university

It is easy to blame others for your problems. All of us do it at some point in our lives. Strangely, universities and academics, whose telos is supposed to be the pursuit of the truth, seem little inclined to examine painful truths about themselves. They seem more inclined to blame outside actors who may be reacting to their failures. This is, of course, not true of all and some individual academics do seem interested in looking deeper (e.g. Jukka Savolainen writing in the Wall Street Journal, MIT Students for Open Inquiry, and some Harvard faculty including a scathing critique from Dr. Omar Sultan Haque). The problem has also become apparent to individual scholars and commenters across the political spectrum, including Fareed Zakaria, Bari Weiss, Niall Ferguson, Jonathan Zimmerman, Josh Barro, Glenn Loury, John McWhorter, Jonathan Haidt, and Musa al-Gharbi. Yet academia itself seems little inclined to admit to a serious problem with its own bias that is obvious to those outside the academic bubble.

While we wait for more research on the topic, I’d like to make a prediction. If universities fail to look inward and examine where they have failed in the eyes of the public and policymakers, then public trust in higher education will continue to fall. Without looking inward at what problems exist, academia may make no course correction at all, or any course correction will make things worse. It is long past time for higher education to examine how it has failed in its primary mission of truth-seeking, pushed toward activism, and lost public trust. Such an introspection will be difficult, but it must take place before any course correction if there is any desire to restore public trust. Otherwise, it is time for the rise of new institutions that can earn the trust of the public and continue the mission of truth-seeking.