18 Comments

Signed. You and FIRE deserve all the accolades for fighting the good fight over 20 years, while staying true to your principles. Glad you are now in the spotlight. Ben Franklin would be proud. Hope this turns the tide, but we have a long road ahead.

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We do, indeed! Thank you!

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Good for Penn! They can give their spiffy new policy a test run on Penn Law Prof. Amy Wax's woeful case of institutional persecution. Hopefully, the policy will shine as brightly as the spin announcing it...

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Great! You deserve a ton of credit. Hopefully this will be the start of a trend among Universities. I look forward to a time when young curious minds are no longer compelled to have one viewpoint or risk alienation. I also hope political moderates and conservatives will see a future that isn’t so wildly one sided.

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Signed! Hopeful. Committed! Keep it up, Greg!

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Thank you, Ray!

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Very good. Signed.

Two suggestions:

#5 - "The University must remain neutral to scientific investigation, and endorses freedom of inquiry generally, ..."

Historical tradition #3 - undegrad curricula must include instruction on the meta-values of Western civilization: fundamental rights including freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, freedom of religion, due process, ...

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I agree with the vast majority of this, but I think that something that is often missing from the debate is that universities need to refocus on their primary mission: research and education.

A key part of a well-functioning civil society is that institutions specialize. If every institution views politics and ideology as one of its primary missions, society begins to unravel. We need to do a much better job of containing politics and ideology to elections and elected representatives. Let the rest of the institutions focus on other missions.

Far too many people see universities as a platform to raise political issues. That is fine when it is done occasionally, but when done repeatedly, it undermines the very goals of the institution and civil society in general

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Signed. Greg, you might want to make it clear where that is, I kept going back and forth trying to find a link that says 'sign here' - maybe I'm just a middle-aged dumb blonde, LOL, but you might get more signatures if it's immediately apparent where it is. Also maybe put a link at the end in case people don't bother to scroll up again to find the link.

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Very smart! Thank you!

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The strategy of trying to cash in the tribute that censorious vice is paying to free-speech virtue is worth a stab.

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Good news indeed! Thanks for sharing the document. I have added my name.

However I disagree about Gay. You failed to mention the allegations of plagiarism. I have seen Rufo’s documentation and it is pretty clear she engaged in academic dishonesty, another problem endemic throughout most American universities.

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Words. Please let us know when there are actions.

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True. I should get off my lazy butt & do more about this campus free speechey thing.

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I wasn't talking about you!

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“Without such [intellectual] freedom there would have been no Shakespeare, no Goethe, no Faraday, no Pasteur, no Lister.” (Einstein, The Value of The Free Man, April 1934)

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Whatever we think about Gay's congressional hearing's performance, she should be fired for plagiarism.

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Dec 13, 2023
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True. Of course their smirks were pretty darn offensive too.

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