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In Defence of 'Academic Freedom'
- zepto 6y agoThe biggest problem with this article is the sneering and sarcastic tone. The problems the author outlines are legitimate - in particular the issue of quality. It can simultaneously be the case that being known for ‘right wing views’ causes career damage, and that the solution proposed by the think tanks would make things worse. Because of the sarcasm, it’s hard to actually evaluate whether the statement that 32% of right wing academics only evaluates to 10 individuals. If this is true, then it’s clearly the case that academia is completely unrepresentative of the general politics of the country. Perhaps there are good reasons for this and it’s not a problem, but the sarcastic and dismissive tone of the author indicates that he doesn’t take it seriously, which ends up confirming the charge of bias. If he can’t see this, that’s a problem. If he can see it, it’s also a problem.