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Joseph Klein
Free the Inquiry, Heterodox Academy
From congressional hearings to donor revolts to headlines about campus protests, American universities are being told—loudly—that they’ve lost the public’s trust. But beneath the noise, there’s a quieter question that rarely gets asked: when Americans criticize universities, what do they actually want them to do instead?
A new study published in Science Advances by economists at Cornell University and the University of Regensburg examines what societal roles Americans believe universities should engage in beyond their core mission of education and research.
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Ghent University suspended postdoctoral scholar Nathan Cofnas as a “precautionary measure” pending a “preliminary disciplinary investigation.” The reason he is being suspended, however, has little if anything to do with him legitimately criticizing Jason Arday’s scholarship last month by documenting plagiarism in Arday’s doctoral thesis. Ghent is instead suspending Cofnas because his expressed public views are misaligned with the university’s values and therefore “creates a reputational risk”. This is not how academic freedom should work.
In July of this year, the American Association of University Professors endorsed Abdul El-Sayed, a candidate in Michigan’s Democratic primary election for U.S. Senate. Reactions from higher ed commentators played out exactly how you might expect: where defenders saw an obligatory bulwark of academic freedom against GOP incursions, critics saw an own-goal that only further justified those attacks.
However justified the AAUP’s decision may have seemed to some, new research suggests that it will only further fracture public trust in higher education.
