Well, we can discuss hypothetical situations, but Gonzalez’s view that the cosmos is designed is hardly a “politically extreme” view. In fact, it’s a mainstream view, held by probably the majority of Americans.
By the way, regarding extreme views, one of the leading figures in linguistics for many years was the Jewish thinker Noam Chomsky. He later became embroiled in a controversy over a French scholar named Faurisson who had denied that gas chambers existed. Faurisson was convicted of hate crime under French law. Chomsky defended, not Faurisson’s view of the gas chambers, but his right to publish his views without civil penalty. He argued that the most important time to defend freedom of speech is in the case of the most unpopular views.
I can’t say for sure what Chomsky would have said about denying tenure to, say, a chemist for denying the Holocaust, but I suspect he would have thought it was a dangerous precedent for a university to behave in that way, particularly if the only reason for the tenure decision was that Holocaust denial was considered loathsome by most citizens. Of course, if the Holocaust denier submitted his arguments to a History department for tenure, I’m sure Chomsky would not object if tenure was denied on the grounds that the arguments were bad. But that is different from denying tenure because the conclusions were loathsome.
Especially pro-evolutionists should think hard about such indirect censorship (shutting people up not by making their speech illegal, but by denying them a career in their field if their speech is deemed loathsome), since at the Scopes trial the issue was whether a school science textbook had the right to present a teaching (about the origin of man) that the majority of people in Tennessee at the time found loathsome.
Of course, the university was traditionally understood to be a place of freedom of speech, and therefore of all places should be the one to defend the right of scholars and scientists to present unpopular views. Cutting mavericks adrift in a lifeboat, in order to further the ambitions of an Administration, is not the way to make that defense.
You may not have seen the additions to the bottom of my post above; I think you replied as I was adding them. Have a look. Anyhow, while it’s quite obvious that universities feel a need to answer to other academics, it’s not at all clear that they feel they have to answer to “the general public”. If a tax-funded state university honestly thought it had to answer to the desires and opinions and values of “the general public” it would make sure that the range of beliefs among its faculty members corresponded roughly to the range of beliefs among the general public. But state universities make no such effort; in fact, their faculty is far more leftist, feminist, irreligious, pro-illegal immigration, etc. than the general public, and while they are often known to bend over backwards to make sure that people of color, women, homosexuals, etc. are represented on the faculty in something approximating their fraction of the general population, they have never made any similar effort to make sure that Christians, social conservatives, political conservatives, etc. are represented on the faculty in similar proportions. Yet this sort of balanced representation is what the general public wants to see in the universities that it pays for. But increasingly, modern academics have contempt for the views, values, and attitudes of the general public.
An absurd charge, pure fantasy. Gonzalez had no power to force Iowa State to do anything. He was an untenured professor, with no pressure at all to exert on his employer. And he did not challenge “mainstream science” in any of his 68 peer-reviewed papers. He asked his peers to evaluate those 68 papers, as mainstream science. The only place where he could have been said to challenge mainstream science was in a popular book he wrote – and we have been informed here that books aren’t relevant to the evaluation of a scientist’s merit, only peer-reviewed articles. In no way would a verdict of tenure have implied that Iowa State agreed with his popular book or that the Astronomy faculty personally or professionally endorsed intelligent design. The verdict would have implied only that his peer-reviewed scientific work was up to snuff.
I mentioned Noam Chomsky above. He was known for taking controversial positions on a whole range of academic issues, and doubtless many of his colleagues at MIT often chose to dissociate themselves as scholars and scientists from Chomsky’s personal views. But so what? MIT never had any problem drawing lots of excellent students, even with Chomsky shooting off his mouth. Really good schools, schools that are secure about their own merits, don’t live in fear, and don’t have to discipline their maverick members. It’s only on-the-make, pipsqueak schools that fancy they want to be top-tier players, that are so insecure about the possible disapproval of their evaluators, that they worry about trivial, passing moments of public embarrassment interfering with their plans. I wouldn’t study at the latter sort of school, I wouldn’t sent my kids there, and I wouldn’t give a penny in donations to such a school, not even if I were an alumnus.
I disrespect spinelessness, whether it occurs in academic or any other guise. I think universities should risk losing a few students, or a few big donors, or prestige in politically correct quarters, by standing up for diversity of thought, even thought that is not accepted by the majority of faculty. Any place where that is not done, is not in my view a real university, but a self-interested collective masquerading as one.
