Thank you for a great conference
Follow-up from our Censorship in the Sciences Conference.
A big thank you to all of the speakers, sponsors, attendees, organizers, staff and volunteers who made our Censorship in the Sciences: Interdisciplinary Perspectives Conference, hosted by the USC Dornsife Center for Economic and Social Research, a success.
Although the Los Angeles fires presented a serious challenge, we were still able to conduct a lively event filled with discussion and debate. We had over 150 in attendance with an additional 200+ joining us via Zoom throughout the weekend. Some photos can be viewed here.
The recording of the first day of our conference (including presentations from Jonathan Rauch, Marcia McNutt, Steven Koonin and Elizabeth Weiss) is now available on the Heterodox Academy YouTube channel. More recordings will be released next week.
Press Coverage
Censorship in the Sciences conference speakers call on peers to organize, defend free speech, writes Jennifer Kabbany in The College Fix.
Rauch’s opening speech highlighted surveys which found that almost half of Americans think that colleges have a negative effect on the country.
“It really is a crisis,” he said, adding a combination of factors are to blame, including students’ emotional fragility, the politicization of hiring, tenure and funding based on ideology, and a newer trend of academic journals refusing to publish findings that allegedly harm some communities.
Kabbany also covered Musa al-Gharbi’s presentation at the conference. Read that article here.
Alice Dreger, managing editor at the Heterodox Academy, wrote a recap on HxA’s Free the Inquiry Substack:
On the issue of censorship of research publication, many speakers at the conference objected to the idea that claims about potential harm to vulnerable populations should be used as a reason to stop, force changes to, or retract research reports. Some raised the question of the harms that arise from alleged-harm-reduction censorship–that is, the harms that arise from stopping valuable research out of fear of harm
In response to a Saturday morning presentation by Nature editor Stavroula Kousta, journalist Jesse Singal, also a speaker at our event, published a critique of some the ideas presented.
Conference organizer and panelist Lee Jussim wrote about the conference (and whether we should just burn academia down).
Panelist Jerry Coyne wrote several dispatches about the conference on his blog Why Evolution is True (which reaches nearly 75,000 readers).
Attendee Zvi Shalem wrote up his take-ways from the conference here.
Panelist Michael Bowen of Free Black Thought reflected on attending conference on his Substack.
Natalya Murakhver wrote about her experience debuting her documentary 15 Days at the conference.
Panel chair Abhishek Saha wrote up excellent Twitter threads (in real time!) detailing conference proceedings. Here is one on the first day of conference.
Please forward any additional responses or media coverage of the conference and we can share them with our readers. You can reach us at heterodox.usc@gmail.com.
Submit Your Writing to the Journal of Controversial Ideas
The Journal of Controversial Ideas will be publishing a special issue devoted to this conference. They welcome submissions from both attendees and speakers. You can read the editorial guidelines here and the instructions for authors here. Submissions are due March 1.
To submit a manuscript:
Register and make a profile on the JCI website.
Once you’ve registered, login and choose “submit manuscript” from the lefthand menu.
Using the dropdown menu, select “Journal of Controversial Ideas (Controversial Ideas) and then “Special Issue Censorship in the Sciences”.
Feedback on 15 Days Film
For those who attended the Saturday evening screening of Natalya Murakhver’s documentary film 15 Days, she’d love your feedback. You can fill out her survey here.
Your Speech is Freer Than You Think
On a Sunday panel, panelist Matt Burgess argued that the rewards for speaking out are generally much greater than the benefits of staying silent. It’s generated a fair amount of internet discussion. His slides and talk can be viewed here on his Substack.
Today, scholars are afraid of woke cancel mobs, or increasingly censorious backlash against wokeness from conservative governments and donors. But the path to academic greatness has always run through pissing off powerful people.
I like to tell my graduate students: If you want to do paradigm-shifting research, you’ll need the courage to break someone’s paradigm. That person will probably be powerful and upset. It’s not just academics wading into controversial social and political issues who benefit from developing a thick skin.
We’ll follow up again next week once the additional recordings are available. Fight On!
Thank you so much, Anna and Team, for an incredible meeting. To next year (hopefully under better circumstances).