On Academic Freedom

Some reflections during celebrations

The European University Institute celebrates its 50th anniversary these days. On May 8th, the EUIdeas conference “The Power of Knowledge” started with a plenary session on academic freedom. This topic is very timely, as it follows an event we organized at the EUI a few months ago on the sometimes difficult balance between academic freedom and freedom of expression. Some concerning things happened at that event, more on that below, and as a community we should keep thinking about these issues and discuss them.

At the EUIdeas conference, Prof. Joseph Weiler, former EUI President, and current Law professor at NYU, discussed the threats to academic freedom ‘from within’; initiatives to deplatform scholars. This was a nice complement to the keynote given by Dr Siofra O’Leary, former president of the European Court of Human Rights (and EUI alumna). O’Leary concentrated on the threats the academic freedom from outside the academy, in particular through authoritarian politics. In the current era we should perhaps be more concerned about these threats from outside; think how Trump and Orban have curtailed free science. But the threats from within also merit continuous attention.

A Voltairian view (extended to academic freedom)

Weiler expressed an opinion that I share, but it also needs elaboration. He took the Voltairian perspective that one should defend another person’s right to defend their position - the Voltairian position obviously originally addressing freedom of expression. Weiler expressed that the invitation of scholars that may be seen as controversial must be dependent on their willingness to be debated. One doesn’t invite scholars just to ‘send’, but also to debate. That mores fits the whole academic enterprise, I’d say, so what does this add? But one may argue that inviting a controversial speaker requires a counter-voice; a discussant or other speaker that offers a different perspective. While this sound sympathetic, it is hard to define who then determines which perspective needs a counter-voice. Surely we wouldn’t want to install a central committee that decides on the level of controversy of speakers.

I started to think a lot about these issues when Jordan Peterson was invited at the University of Amsterdam (UvA) a number of years ago (I was working at the UvA at the time). Jordan Peterson then worked a lot on gender, and claimed to follow scientific argumentation and evidence to argue that men and women are different, and that men won’t let themselves be defeated by women’s rise in many fields. The quite unemancipatory, gender-competitive perspective was based on what I think is cherry picking in the data. Like Karl Popper already said: evidence that scholars present is likely to be biased, and that is why we need propositions so we know what we can agree or disagree on. There was a strong call against the invitation of Peterson, or calls for a counter voice, as the evidence that he presents is biased and selective. It made me think of other scholarship that is, empirically, not very strong, yet appeals to scientists more easily because of the political implications. I thought of the work of Richard Wilkinson on the effects of economic inequality on societal ills. Supported by rather simple scatterplots, Wilkinson (including the well-known work with Kate Pickett, The Spirit Level) claims that more unequal societies have lower trust, poorer health, more crime, and worse family life (and by the way I know Wilkinson has used more advanced methods in his papers). I was involved in a large European project (the GINI project) to put Wilkinson’s claim to closer scrutiny, and the overall conclusion was rather critical about the effect of economic inequality on social outcomes. While I am perhaps still more sympathetic to the original claim than my co-authors, it would not come to people’s minds to request a counter-voice if Wilkinson was invited to speak.

Then Weiler defended why he follows the Voltairian idea, critical of deplatforming. First, he said, we live in an increasingly polarized world, and where else than at the university should we discuss polarization? Second, cancelling scholars to come speak also cancels part of the students and professors who may be more supportive of a certain research agenda. Third, we should appreciate academic courage, not only academic freedom, because it confronts us with diverting views.

The rules of the game

These points I all agree with, but one thing was missing from the conditions that Prof Weiler mentioned. Former President and Rector of the Central European University, the institute that had to move from Budapest to Vienna because of Orban’s policies, is Michael Ignatieff. Ignatieff gave a keynote at the event we organized a few months ago. We invited him because he wrote an interesting article on academic freedom, stipulating that the main difference between the two freedoms is whether scholars follow the rules of the game. Freedom of expression ensures that people can express their views, it is a political right, so to say. But academic freedom is more limited; it should not protect the ability to express our opinions, but it should enable us to study and teach what we want while we follow the mores of the academy. This means that we need a scientific argument and/or evidence. Some participants to our earlier event thought that we should particularly protect academic freedom; freedom of expression is secondary to that.

Academic freedom at the EUI

As said, a few months ago we organized an event on the two freedoms, where we invited a speaker who is known as a gender-critical scholar. As far as I can see, she is somebody who follows the rules of the game, expressing her views mostly in relation to data collection. Her claim is that sex is binary, and distinct from gender self-identification. She was invited as a speaker on the two freedoms, not on issues of sex and gender. Nevertheless, a group of researchers felt the need to protest against her presence at the university, as her academic position supposedly negates the identity of vulnerable groups of scholars. The protest came with chants directed at one single academic guest, in ways that I felt was intimidating.

I am not taking a position on either of these views, except that I think I read well that the professor agrees that people can have gender identities that are different from the sex at birth; but alas. The professor maintains that official data should register sex at birth, for various reasons, including diagnosis of medical situations. Given that she follows the rules of the game, I thought we had invited a ‘safe bet’. Different from a scholar with a more public, provocative positioning on social media, in this case about religion, against whose presence protests arose some time ago, which was the reason to organize our event. (I also disproved with that call for cancellation, as members of the university community should be free to invite scholars who want to follow the scientific mores).

Weiler’s position would defend the presence of the gender-critical scholar at our university. And I stand by our choice. We should, however, keep the conversation going. When, for instance, should we invite a counter-voice? One interesting thought that came up in the discussions we are having is that counter-voices may be particularly welcome when scientific evidence can be (mis)used by political agents in ways beyond the scope of the underlying academic work. Raising awareness among organizers of events on such matters may be useful, within the framework of freedom of researching and teaching as we think is important.

Another interesting issue that is debated is the level of knowledge we need before views are unacceptable. Do we need to spend resources to invite a flat-earther at the university? Probably not, as the evidence is overwhelming against that position. Do we need to wait for that certainty of knowledge before we cancel scientists? Maybe it is not a bad starting position.