M.I.T. cancels Dr. Abbot

 A front page article in today’s New York Times discusses the sad state of affairs in academia.  Schools like M.I.T. that should be in the forefront of protecting the clash of ideas and teaching tolerance are instead acting like bullies, shutting off debate for fear somebody’s feelings might get hurt.  

Dr. Dorian Abbot, an expert on climate change and atmospheric systems of distant planets, was supposed to give a public lecture at M.I.T.  Dr. Abbot has spoken out against affirmative action programs at the University of Chicago.  Dr. Abbot, who is white, said that some diversity programs treat “people as members of a group rather than as individuals, repeating the mistake that made possible the atrocities of the 20th century.”  Dr. Abbot is not a member of the Proud Boys; he said he favors a diverse pool of applicants selected on merit.  His lecture, by the way, was not about affirmative action and would not have mentioned it.

Some faculty members and grad students immediately protested.  They said Dr. Abbot was “infuriating,” and “inappropriate.”  They demanded his lecture be cancelled.  And M.I.T. did just that.  

What I thought was a bastion of learning, of academic freedom, of the free exchange of ideas and the scientific method caved.  Chickened out.

I have a number of thoughts about this.  First of all, at my very first teaching job in California at Hartnell College in Salinas, I publicly opposed Hartnell’s affirmative action plan, which involved hard quotas.  I believe those programs should be based on class and income, not race or gender, and should involve recruitment and encouragement and tutoring, not hard quotas.  I am pretty sure that today I would have been dismissed.

I firmly believe that American race relations should receive greater emphasis.  Much of our history has been hidden for too long, and it needs to be taught.  Do you know who doesn’t believe that?  Legislators in about 45 states.  Professors at M.I.T. and other universities who ban speech or even a hint of controversy are setting some very dangerous precedents.

Those professors and grad students and M.I.T. administrators who think they are protecting our feelings from being hurt ought to be ashamed.  Don’t shut ideas down, counter them with better ideas.  If the only way you can prevail is by censorship, you probably shouldn’t be teaching in a university.

Here’s the good news.  The day after Dr. Abbot’s speech was cancelled, Princeton University invited him to give the same speech on the same day.  (By the way, Dr. Abbot also opposes legacy admissions.  Let’s see what M.I.T. has to say about that.)