Stanford Academic Freedom Conference

HAFFS was a co-sponsor of this conference, which took place on Nov. 4 and Nov. 5, 2022, at the Stanford Graduate School of Business.

Carl Neuss, Co-Chair of the HAFFS Board of Advisors and Professor Dorian Abbot, a member of the Advisory Board, were among the speakers and panelists.

To view some of the presentations, please follow this link:

https://www.youtube.com/@stanfordcli

Conference Summary:

Academic freedom, open inquiry, and freedom of speech are under threat as they have not been for decades. Visibly, academics are “canceled,” fired, or subject to lengthy disciplinary proceedings in response to academic writing or public engagement.

Less visibly, funding agencies, university bureaucracies, hiring procedures, promotion committees, professional organizations, and journals censor some kinds of research or demand adherence to political causes.

Many parts of universities have become politicized or have turned into ideological monocultures, excluding people, ideas, or kinds of work that challenge their orthodoxy. Younger researchers are afraid to speak and write and don’t investigate promising ideas that they fear will endanger their careers.

The two-day Stanford Academic Freedom Conference identified ways to restore academic freedom, open inquiry, and freedom of expression on campus and in the larger culture, as well as how to support the open debate required for new knowledge to flourish.