FIRE released its annual “Top Ten Worst Censors” list. They are…
- Muirlands Middle School
- The Marion County Police Dept.
- The Mayo Clinic College of Medical Science
- Book censors
- San Francisco State University
- Hypocritical university admins
- California Community Colleges
- The Texas A&M University system
- Florida state officials
- New York state officials
As you see by the EA links, I batted just .500 in covering this topic, and some of the incidents described in FIRE’s report are clearly major ethics breaches that should have been discussed here. Personally, I blame Donald Trump for being a catalyst for so much unethical conduct by the Axis of Unethical Conduct (AUC)—the “resistance,” Democrats and the mainstream media—as well as his own usual forays into the Ethics Twilight Zone that I missed other important matters. Or, as Joni Mitchell might have croaked, “So many things I might have done, but Trump got in my way….”
OK, I’m kidding. Sort of.
The most horrible story that I missed is a tie between the Mayo Clinic outrage and the Marion County Police Dept.’s gestapo act. In that one, FIRE explains,
“The Marion, Kansas police, with the help of a magistrate judge (and maybe even state-level officials), cobbled together a search warrant to invade the offices of the family-owned Marion County Record. Why? They didn’t like that the newspaper had dirt on a political ally — not to mention the paper’s investigations into allegations of misconduct by the police chief himself.”
“They seized computers. They ripped a reporter’s cell phone out of her hand. They even rummaged around the home of the 98-year-old co-owner of the paper, ignoring her protests. The next day, following the shock of the raid, she passed away.”
Yikes. As for the Mayo Clinic, FIRE tells us,
“Dr Michael Joyner is a renowned academic whose commentary on COVID-19, public health, and sex differences in sports performance you can read in CNN, The New York Times, and numerous other media outlets over his 36 years at the Mayo Clinic. For speaking in his personal capacity about these issues, Mayo Clinic suspended him for “failing to communicate in accordance with prescribed messaging” and “reflecting poorly on Mayo Clinic’s brand and reputation.”
The college also demanded he “discuss approved topics only and stick to prescribed messaging” and “vet each individual media request through Public Affairs.” In other words, Joyner can speak the words administrators put into his mouth — or not speak at all.
Yet the college promises its faculty robust academic freedom and freedom of expression — rights essential to medical professionals expected to share their expertise even when it is difficult or unpopular. Despite this commitment, Mayo Clinic leadership put its business interests above the freedom necessary for scientific innovation and sound medical advice, to the detriment of doctors and patients alike.”
What FIRE doesn’t tell us is how many of these frontal assaults on free speech were officially opposed by the ACLU. My guess: few or none.
FIRE also announced its that a Lifetime Censorship Award was being awarded to Harvard University. (Now I know I’ve covered most of those stories!) What clinched the honor was Harvard threatening the New York Post with a defamation lawsuit if the paper published a report on then-Harvard president Claudine Gay engaging in scholarly plagiarism—which she had in fact done. Says FIRE…
“Long before Harvard threatened news outlets with litigation for their reporting, it punished faculty and students for their speech. School administrators drove out lecturer Carole Hooven for arguing that biological sex is real. It rescinded a fellowship for former Human Rights Watch Executive Director Kenneth Roth over his purported “anti-Israel bias.” It effectively fired an economics professor for an op-ed he published in India. It canceled a professor’s course on policing following student uproar. It fired professor Ronald Sullivan from his deanship after students protested his role on Harvey Weinstein’s criminal defense team. It bizarrely demanded students take down a Nicki Minaj flag because the community could find it “offensive.” And the list goes on.”
“Even outside speakers invited to campus aren’t safe from Harvard’s censorial glare. In 2022, feminist philosopher Devin Buckley was disinvited from an English department colloquium because of her views on sex and gender. Her talk was supposed to be on the separate topic of British romanticism.”
The troubling question FIRE’s post raised in my mind, and will perhaps in yours, is this: Are these examples of isolated rot in our culture and institutions, or is this closer to the norm, which means that Neither FIRE, nor I, nor you, can be sufficiently vigilant to combat it effectively?
Ethics Alarms 
I think the ones reported on are isolated incidents, but not in an optimistic way. I think the norm is to freeze out wrongthink before people are hired or invited, using academic reputations and grapevines, along with scanning CVs, publications, and social media for hints or slip-ups.
What we end up seeing here or at FIRE are the emergency clean up when the “system” failed or the correct opinions about Eastasia changed too quickly for someone to keep up.
I think most of these stories are the ones that never happened. I don’t think there’s any hope of keeping up with those or weeding them out of academia.
I believe I posted about the Marion County episode during a Friday open forum. It is a lot worse than the post above would suggest. There is the point that the warrant was based on the paper accessing publicly available information about a DUI, about a judge with a DUI, about the State Police lying about supporting the raid, etc. It is mess uncovering the fact that there is widespread corruption in the police and judiciary in Kansas.
Another reason to be grateful for reader contributions.
I think I managed to write about only two or three of these on my blog, but several more made it to the Facebook page. I do suggest that those interested in 1st amendment issues subscribe to FIRE’s email updates. I don’t always agree with their conclusions, but they’re never ridiculous, as so many other sites, left and right, so often are.