Introducing the Minding the Campus Lysenko Award – Minding The Campus
Dishonorable mention for the inaugural Lysenko Award goes to MIT Professor Robert van der Hilst, who caved to the Twitter mob and disinvited Professor Dorian Abbot from giving MIT s annual Carlson lecture. However, as there appears to be some question as to whether Prof. van der Hilst was motivated by a desire for academic censorship or simple cowardice, he gets a reprieve.
Our winner, however, has no such excuse. While also involved in l affaire Abbot, she is not on the MIT faculty or in its administration, so unlike Prof. van der Hilst, she was not thrust into the fray. Nevertheless, this Williams College department chair helped lead the keyboard warriors demanding that Prof. Abbot be disinvited from giving the Carlson Lecture not because his science was unsound, or that he was unqualified, or that he had broken the law or committed a tort, but because he believes that individuals in higher education should be evaluated based on their individual merit rather than their membership in an identity group. Scandalous, I know. Apropos to the purpose of our award, when interviewed by the New York Times, our winner justified her actions thusly:
What, she was asked, of the effect on academic debate? Should the academy serve as a bastion of unfettered speech?
This idea of intellectual debate and rigor as the pinnacle of intellectualism comes from a world in which white men dominated, she replied.