the Justice Girl and Academic Freedom

[JohnStOnge]

Ok I'm sorry if there is a thread on this but I can't find it. It's the girl/lady or whatever who wrote the Harvard Crimson editorial on ditching academic freedom for "Justice."

http://www.thecrimson.com/column/the-re ... m-justice/#" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

First let me say that I'm against academic freedom in one sense. I think that a university employs a professor. If a university doesn't like what a professor is saying the university has the right to discharge them. That is especially true with respect to State universities. State university professors are State employees. Their employer has the right, I think, to tell them not to say certain things if they want to stay employed.

On the other hand I do think it's a good idea to allow researchers to investigate questions. And I think that the girl/lady's position is problematic because she objects to inquiry that might call her concept of "Justice" into question. For example: Richard Hernstien's analysis of the extent to which IQ is inherited, etc., might call into question some of her perceptions as to what is "Just" and what is not.

Peoples' perception as to what is "Just" varies.

[JohnStOnge]

BTW, Richard Hernstien did not argue that "...intelligence is almost entirely hereditary." He argued that, given the variation actually introduced by the environment in practice, heredity accounts for more of the variation than environment does.

Just one more example of how progressives set up arguments by starting with the assertion that somebody said something they didn't say.

[Baldy]

Ok I'm sorry if there is a thread on this but I can't find it. It's the girl/lady or whatever who wrote the Harvard Crimson editorial on ditching academic freedom for "Justice."

http://www.thecrimson.com/column/the-re ... m-justice/#" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

First let me say that I'm against academic freedom in one sense. I think that a university employs a professor. If a university doesn't like what a professor is saying the university has the right to discharge them. That is especially true with respect to State universities. State university professors are State employees. Their employer has the right, I think, to tell them not to say certain things if they want to stay employed.

On the other hand I do think it's a good idea to allow researchers to investigate questions. And I think that the girl/lady's position is problematic because she objects to inquiry that might call her concept of "Justice" into question. For example: Richard Hernstien's analysis of the extent to which IQ is inherited, etc., might call into question some of her perceptions as to what is "Just" and what is not.

Peoples' perception as to what is "Just" varies.

That free speech thingy is a real conundrum.

[Ivytalk]

Reason number 6853 why I no longer give to Harvard.

"Academic justice," indeed. More of the same old repressive leftist claptrap that I heard there 40 years ago.

[JohnStOnge]

That free speech thingy is a real conundrum.

An employer deciding to discharge an employee for something the employeeaid is not of violation of the free speech thing. Government charging somebody, throwing them in jail, etc., for something they said is.

So I would say Harvard should be free to discharge professors for what they say. And it should be free to discharge professors if it doesn't like the research they come up with.

But if it does so it my compromise its credibility. Very tough to draw the line there.