Some scientists say that it has become increasingly treacherous to discuss politically sensitive issues. They point to several recent cases, like that of Helmuth Nyborg, a Danish researcher who was fired in 2006 after he caused a furor in the press by reporting a slight difference in average I.Q. test scores between the sexes.
“What happened to Bailey is important, because the harassment was so extraordinarily bad and because it could happen to any researcher in the field,” said Alice Dreger, an ethics scholar and patients’ rights advocate at Northwestern who, after conducting a lengthy investigation of Dr. Bailey’s actions, has concluded that he is essentially blameless. “If we’re going to have research at all, then we’re going to have people saying unpopular things, and if this is what happens to them, then we’ve got problems not only for science but free expression itself.”
NYTimes article
Scientists not free to think or speak
Started by
Rogerdodger
, Aug 20 2007 10:49 PM
2 replies to this topic
#1
Rogerdodger
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- TT Member*
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#2
stocks
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Posted 31 August 2007 - 02:24 PM
Not ony scientists:
Campus Alert: ‘Hostile’ George Washington
May 7, 2007
New York Post
Walter Kehowski, a math professor at Glendale Community College in Arizona’s Maricopa County Community College District (MCCCD), wishes he’d never e-mailed his fellow employees Thanksgiving greetings last November.
While reading a Web log, Kehowski found George Washington’s “Thanksgiving Day Proclamation of 1789” and decided to send it along to the Maricopa community the day before Thanksgiving, 2006. Using an e-mail address commonly used to send out announcements, Kehowski e-mailed the text of the proclamation - and a link to the Web page on which hed found it . . . on Pat Buchanan’s site.
Within weeks, five employees filed harassment charges against Kehowski, claiming his message was “hostile” and “derogatory” because the link he’d included also led to Buchanan's comments about immigration.
A holiday greeting containing a link to a blog, which readers can either visit or simply ignore, doesn’t fit any definition of harassment. Yet, instead of dismissing the bogus allegations, the MCCCD administration ruled that Kehowski had violated the district’s Equal Employment Opportunity policy and technology policies that ban e-mails that are unsolicited or not work-related.
Yet in a single month (March 2007) individuals used the same listserv to send e-mails ads on how to purchase goats for Ugandan orphans and reminders on the health benefits of bananas - hardly work-related info. MCCCD Chancellor Rufus Glasper put Kehowski on paid administrative leave and asked the district's Governing Board that he be dismissed. Kehowski has since appealed the decision, with a hearing set for June 5.
Until then, a professor teeters on the edge of being fired, all because he sent out a Thanksgiving greeting written by the first U.S. president.
About FIRE
Mission
The mission of FIRE is to defend and sustain individual rights at America's colleges and universities. These rights include freedom of speech, legal equality, due process, religious liberty, and sanctity of conscience—the essential qualities of individual liberty and dignity. FIRE's core mission is to protect the unprotected and to educate the public and communities of concerned Americans about the threats to these rights on our campuses and about the means to preserve them.
http://www.thefire.o...286a565d1af07fc
Campus Alert: ‘Hostile’ George Washington
May 7, 2007
New York Post
Walter Kehowski, a math professor at Glendale Community College in Arizona’s Maricopa County Community College District (MCCCD), wishes he’d never e-mailed his fellow employees Thanksgiving greetings last November.
While reading a Web log, Kehowski found George Washington’s “Thanksgiving Day Proclamation of 1789” and decided to send it along to the Maricopa community the day before Thanksgiving, 2006. Using an e-mail address commonly used to send out announcements, Kehowski e-mailed the text of the proclamation - and a link to the Web page on which hed found it . . . on Pat Buchanan’s site.
Within weeks, five employees filed harassment charges against Kehowski, claiming his message was “hostile” and “derogatory” because the link he’d included also led to Buchanan's comments about immigration.
A holiday greeting containing a link to a blog, which readers can either visit or simply ignore, doesn’t fit any definition of harassment. Yet, instead of dismissing the bogus allegations, the MCCCD administration ruled that Kehowski had violated the district’s Equal Employment Opportunity policy and technology policies that ban e-mails that are unsolicited or not work-related.
Yet in a single month (March 2007) individuals used the same listserv to send e-mails ads on how to purchase goats for Ugandan orphans and reminders on the health benefits of bananas - hardly work-related info. MCCCD Chancellor Rufus Glasper put Kehowski on paid administrative leave and asked the district's Governing Board that he be dismissed. Kehowski has since appealed the decision, with a hearing set for June 5.
Until then, a professor teeters on the edge of being fired, all because he sent out a Thanksgiving greeting written by the first U.S. president.
About FIRE
Mission
The mission of FIRE is to defend and sustain individual rights at America's colleges and universities. These rights include freedom of speech, legal equality, due process, religious liberty, and sanctity of conscience—the essential qualities of individual liberty and dignity. FIRE's core mission is to protect the unprotected and to educate the public and communities of concerned Americans about the threats to these rights on our campuses and about the means to preserve them.
http://www.thefire.o...286a565d1af07fc
-- -
Defenders of the status quo are always stronger than reformers seeking change,
UNTIL the status quo self-destructs from its own corruption, and the reformers are free to build on its ashes.
Defenders of the status quo are always stronger than reformers seeking change,
UNTIL the status quo self-destructs from its own corruption, and the reformers are free to build on its ashes.
#3
stocks
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Posted 01 September 2007 - 12:39 PM
For the First Amendment fighters employed by the Philadelphia-based Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE) patrolling America’s college campuses in search of speech codes, censorship, harassment and intimidation, the summer of 2007 has been a good year.
Earlier this year when the University of Rhode Island tried to punish College Republicans for holding a mock whites-only scholarship, FIRE stepped in and the First Amendment prevailed.
In June, FIRE was instrumental in making sure Walter Kehowski was able to return to the classroom. The Arizona professor was suspended from teaching his class at Glendale Community College when he used the college's e-mail system to post George Washington’s Thanksgiving Day proclamation a day before Thanksgiving. The posting was deemed offensive.
And now, coming of the heels of a solid first half of the year, FIRE has tackled yet another speech code in Colorado. In a solid victory for free speech rights, student activists, with help from FIRE, convinced Colorado State University (CSU) to revise three speech codes that the First Amendment experts argued were unconstitutional.
"This is an exciting day for free speech at Colorado State,” stated Greg Lukianoff, president of FIRE. “By making these changes, the administration has proven it is serious about protecting its students’ First Amendment rights, and we commend the university.”
The controversy began in April when CSU students complained that there were three unconstitutional policies on campus: the peaceful assembly policy, the advertising policy and the hate incidents policy. All three of these policies had the effect of being a speech code—a rule or regulation that impedes the free exchange of ideas and runs afoul of the First Amendment.
http://www.thefire.o...286a565d1af07fc
Earlier this year when the University of Rhode Island tried to punish College Republicans for holding a mock whites-only scholarship, FIRE stepped in and the First Amendment prevailed.
In June, FIRE was instrumental in making sure Walter Kehowski was able to return to the classroom. The Arizona professor was suspended from teaching his class at Glendale Community College when he used the college's e-mail system to post George Washington’s Thanksgiving Day proclamation a day before Thanksgiving. The posting was deemed offensive.
And now, coming of the heels of a solid first half of the year, FIRE has tackled yet another speech code in Colorado. In a solid victory for free speech rights, student activists, with help from FIRE, convinced Colorado State University (CSU) to revise three speech codes that the First Amendment experts argued were unconstitutional.
"This is an exciting day for free speech at Colorado State,” stated Greg Lukianoff, president of FIRE. “By making these changes, the administration has proven it is serious about protecting its students’ First Amendment rights, and we commend the university.”
The controversy began in April when CSU students complained that there were three unconstitutional policies on campus: the peaceful assembly policy, the advertising policy and the hate incidents policy. All three of these policies had the effect of being a speech code—a rule or regulation that impedes the free exchange of ideas and runs afoul of the First Amendment.
http://www.thefire.o...286a565d1af07fc
-- -
Defenders of the status quo are always stronger than reformers seeking change,
UNTIL the status quo self-destructs from its own corruption, and the reformers are free to build on its ashes.
Defenders of the status quo are always stronger than reformers seeking change,
UNTIL the status quo self-destructs from its own corruption, and the reformers are free to build on its ashes.
