ApostateAbe
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An article by intelligence researcher Linda Gottfredson, narrating why advocating for the position of racial hereditarianism, mainstream among psychologists who specialize in intelligence, is far more hazardous for an academic career outside that narrow field than would be typically expected. Gottfredson is an academic in the field of education.
"Lessons in academic freedom as lived experience," 2010
Excerpt:
"Lessons in academic freedom as lived experience," 2010
Excerpt:
The most unsettling ideas make the most tempting targets for
suppression. Labeling an idea dangerous makes it a target, and
the label simultaneously provides moral justification for suppressing
it. Thus does suppression claim the moral high ground: danger
and evil require such suppression in the name of the greater good.
The more horrific the allusions to evil, the greater the alarm and
revulsion evoked, and the greater the urge in bystanders to endorse
all possible means of destroying the evil.
This invitation to set personal and professional scruples aside
comes in three predictable forms: the targeted individual is said to
be incompetent, immoral, or have a character defect. Academic freedom
does not shelter incompetence or dishonesty, so accusations of
either work to strip the targeted scholar of its protections. The
department P&T committee’s recommendation against my promotion
simultaneously accused me of both when it alleged I had a ‘‘tendency
to misrepresent the positions of others.” An allegedly
dishonest or malevolent scholar who appeals to the protections of
free speech or academic freedom is said to be ‘‘hiding behind” them,
which provokes further scorn. Every attempt at self-defense becomes
another offense. Intimations of immorality, mean-spiritedness,
perverse tendencies (‘‘preoccupation” with race), and the like
all mobilize distaste for targeted scholars, relax scruples in dealing
with them fairly, and cause associates to shun them.
suppression. Labeling an idea dangerous makes it a target, and
the label simultaneously provides moral justification for suppressing
it. Thus does suppression claim the moral high ground: danger
and evil require such suppression in the name of the greater good.
The more horrific the allusions to evil, the greater the alarm and
revulsion evoked, and the greater the urge in bystanders to endorse
all possible means of destroying the evil.
This invitation to set personal and professional scruples aside
comes in three predictable forms: the targeted individual is said to
be incompetent, immoral, or have a character defect. Academic freedom
does not shelter incompetence or dishonesty, so accusations of
either work to strip the targeted scholar of its protections. The
department P&T committee’s recommendation against my promotion
simultaneously accused me of both when it alleged I had a ‘‘tendency
to misrepresent the positions of others.” An allegedly
dishonest or malevolent scholar who appeals to the protections of
free speech or academic freedom is said to be ‘‘hiding behind” them,
which provokes further scorn. Every attempt at self-defense becomes
another offense. Intimations of immorality, mean-spiritedness,
perverse tendencies (‘‘preoccupation” with race), and the like
all mobilize distaste for targeted scholars, relax scruples in dealing
with them fairly, and cause associates to shun them.