"The suspension of Cofnas only serves to entrench academic self-censorship and erodes trust in the academy’s ability to reform itself." False. The Cofnas lynching did not erode my trust in the university to police itself, it confirmed my belief that it is systemically (that word!) incapable of reforming itself. A belief that anyone who has been paying attention over the last 20 years or so (and who has a scintilla of intellectual honesty) would agree with.
The short-circuiting of academic freedom, both in the US and in Europe, is far worse than you article suggests.
In a recent podcast, Tyler Austin Harper (whose Atlantic article explaining why he quit a tenure-track job was the other big story in academia in recent weeks) described academics as people who have few real convictions, who want to be led, and who are perpetually terrified of mostly everything. This is cowardice at its worst. If they found his views objectionable, they shouldn't have hired him—especially given their "soul-deep" commitment to DEI. This reversal speaks loudly and clearly about Ghent's true values. I would say that I can't believe they would make such an obviously disingenuous decision, but that would be disingenuous.
Well, let’s be clear on the point of fact that, cowardice is incentivized and we are taught from children to look for some other authority to direct us. This is a societal ill manifesting, in such fashions, in academia. Social psychologists and sociologists worth their salt should be drawing attention to this.
I can't disagree that cowardice and a host of other socially deleterious traits and behaviors have been incentivized in the past half century in ways that they were not in earlier periods.
This is one of the many reasons a college degree carries much less clout than it did a decade ago, and the decline will only worsen with AI and the rising cost of higher education. Woke colleges giving woke degrees will fail.
Reputational Risk! Nonsense. Of course the irony here is that by suspending Cofnas, they have actually damaged their own reputation. And in a much more serious way. How foolish.
"The reason he is being suspended, however, has little if anything to do with him legitimately criticizing Jason Arday’s scholarship last month by documenting plagiarism in Arday’s doctoral thesis. Ghent is instead suspending Cofnas because his expressed public views are misaligned with the university’s values and therefore “creates a reputational risk”. This is not how academic freedom should work."
1-Cofnas's suspension had everything to do with blowing the whistle on Arday and Cambridge.
2-GhentU knew about Cofnas's public views forever and still employed him.
3-That last sentence in the quoted text is entirely correct.
This essay leaves out one key consideration. The behavior of Ghent University (and of Cambridge in trying to scare off exposure of one professor’s deceptive practices) need not tarnish the reputation of ALL academia. The public will note the dishonesty and police-state mentality exhibited by these particular institutions, and contrast them with other institutions which behave differently.
This pattern may be shown, in a small way, by the declining enrollment at Washington’s Evergreen State College, after it forced out two professors who expressed certain non-woke, dissenting views in 2017. The numbers for Evergreen are as follows. Recent Enrollment by Year: 2015–2016: 4,190 total students; 2016–2017: 4,089 total students; 2017–2018: 3,907 total students; 2018–2019: 3,327 total students; 2019–2020: 2,854 total students; 2023–2024: ~2,108 + undergraduate baseline; 2024–2025: 2,490 total students (2,276 undergraduate and 214 graduate students). Note the ~40% enrollment decline from 2015-2017 to 2023-2025.
"The suspension of Cofnas only serves to entrench academic self-censorship and erodes trust in the academy’s ability to reform itself." False. The Cofnas lynching did not erode my trust in the university to police itself, it confirmed my belief that it is systemically (that word!) incapable of reforming itself. A belief that anyone who has been paying attention over the last 20 years or so (and who has a scintilla of intellectual honesty) would agree with.
The short-circuiting of academic freedom, both in the US and in Europe, is far worse than you article suggests.
This is very scary. There goes civilization as we used to know it.
Yes.
In a recent podcast, Tyler Austin Harper (whose Atlantic article explaining why he quit a tenure-track job was the other big story in academia in recent weeks) described academics as people who have few real convictions, who want to be led, and who are perpetually terrified of mostly everything. This is cowardice at its worst. If they found his views objectionable, they shouldn't have hired him—especially given their "soul-deep" commitment to DEI. This reversal speaks loudly and clearly about Ghent's true values. I would say that I can't believe they would make such an obviously disingenuous decision, but that would be disingenuous.
Well, let’s be clear on the point of fact that, cowardice is incentivized and we are taught from children to look for some other authority to direct us. This is a societal ill manifesting, in such fashions, in academia. Social psychologists and sociologists worth their salt should be drawing attention to this.
I can't disagree that cowardice and a host of other socially deleterious traits and behaviors have been incentivized in the past half century in ways that they were not in earlier periods.
This is one of the many reasons a college degree carries much less clout than it did a decade ago, and the decline will only worsen with AI and the rising cost of higher education. Woke colleges giving woke degrees will fail.
Reputational Risk! Nonsense. Of course the irony here is that by suspending Cofnas, they have actually damaged their own reputation. And in a much more serious way. How foolish.
"The reason he is being suspended, however, has little if anything to do with him legitimately criticizing Jason Arday’s scholarship last month by documenting plagiarism in Arday’s doctoral thesis. Ghent is instead suspending Cofnas because his expressed public views are misaligned with the university’s values and therefore “creates a reputational risk”. This is not how academic freedom should work."
1-Cofnas's suspension had everything to do with blowing the whistle on Arday and Cambridge.
2-GhentU knew about Cofnas's public views forever and still employed him.
3-That last sentence in the quoted text is entirely correct.
This essay leaves out one key consideration. The behavior of Ghent University (and of Cambridge in trying to scare off exposure of one professor’s deceptive practices) need not tarnish the reputation of ALL academia. The public will note the dishonesty and police-state mentality exhibited by these particular institutions, and contrast them with other institutions which behave differently.
This pattern may be shown, in a small way, by the declining enrollment at Washington’s Evergreen State College, after it forced out two professors who expressed certain non-woke, dissenting views in 2017. The numbers for Evergreen are as follows. Recent Enrollment by Year: 2015–2016: 4,190 total students; 2016–2017: 4,089 total students; 2017–2018: 3,907 total students; 2018–2019: 3,327 total students; 2019–2020: 2,854 total students; 2023–2024: ~2,108 + undergraduate baseline; 2024–2025: 2,490 total students (2,276 undergraduate and 214 graduate students). Note the ~40% enrollment decline from 2015-2017 to 2023-2025.