Shortly after I retired as an Emeritus Professor of Biology, I joined the National Association of Scholars, a higher-ed reform think tank dedicated to upholding the values of liberal education in American higher education. I joined them because I believe higher education has largely lost those liberal values. My work with them has involved writing, development of policy, and video productions.
American science has been wracked by a moral panic over the Trump administration's "war on science", being waged through budget cuts to administrative charges levied on research grants. On 7 March 2025, the groups Stand Up for Science staged a protest at the National Mall in Washington DC. Turns out it was not about science at all, but astroturf staged by the United Auto Workers.
If academics are to be believed, universities and science are under siege by the anti-science, anti-intellectual, anti-academic Trump administration. So, a group of academics at Cornell University organized a round-table discussion, which was mainly a venue for left-wing academics to vent.
Francis Menton, aka The Manhattan Contrarian recently visited the National Association of Scholars headquarters in Manhattan to offer his thoughts on climate "science" and its hijacking as a tool of political activism.
Waste Land is a report by David Randall and Teresa Manning of the National Association of Scholars, about the parlous state of American education. They recently visited the NAS headquarters in Manhattan for a panel discussion about the report. Here are some of the highlights.
Amy Wax, Elizabeth Weiss, and Frances Widdowson have all faced vicious cancellation campaigns for expressing impure thoughts on a variety of topics, and from their own universities. Are universities dedicated freedom of inquiry any more? All three women recently visited the Manhattan headquarters of the National Association of Scholars for a panel discussion on that question.
Elizabeth Weiss and Frances Widdowson are two prominent anthropologists who faced intense cancellation campaigns from Native American activists, Weiss for her insistence that skeletal remains of past American Indian cultures were valuable scientific artefacts and should not be buried, Widdowson for her instance that there was no evidence that the alleged mass graves of Indian children at Canadian boarding schools existed. Both lost their jobs. We find out why.
Since retiring, I have joined the National Association of Scholars as their Director of Science Programs.
As part of my work with the NAS, I have been producing webinars under the headline of Restoring the Sciences. This is a mixture of live-streamed and recorded interviews with prominent guests, all to discuss how to restore the sciences to bastions of free inquiry.
Kathleen Stock is a British philosopher who has been a lightning rod in the ongoing transgender controversies. In her book, Material Girls: Why Reality Matters for Feminism, she dives deeply into the confusion that surrounds sex, gender, gender identity, and transgenderism. She argues that transgenderism has allowed biological men to intrude on hard-won advancement for interests of women—which she has described as a "land grab"—to the ultimate detriment of women and girls. For this, she has endured a campaign of cancellation that she describes as "medieval."
On the evening of 17 April 2024, the MIT Free Speech Alliance, the Adam Smith Society, and Students for Free Inquiry hosted another Great Debate. Tonight's debate will consider the question: Is sex binary? Prior to the debate, we had a conversation with the team defending the "Yea" side, Prof Alex Byrne, Professor of Philosophy at MIT, and Dr Holly Lawford Smith, Professor of Political Philosophy at the University of Melbourne. Hosted by the National Association of Scholars.
Since the Hamas-instigated invasion of Israel on 7 October 2023, Cornell University has been the site of active anti-Israel and pro-Hamas protests, led by a group that calls itself the Coalition for Mutual Liberation (CLM).
On 18 September 2024, CLM illegally entered the Statler Hotel to disrupt a job recruitment fair that was being held there.
The anti-Israel group Coalition for Mutual Liberation (CLM) wants Cornell University to divest from companies, like Boeing, that sell weapons to Israel. On 18 October, one month after the same group stormed the Statler Hotel to disrupt a job fair where Boeing was recruiting. The occasion was a meeting of the Cornell Board of Trustees. We were there recording the attempted disruption.
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