The Stanford Faculty Senate has now added its voice of condemnation of Scott Atlas over his conduct … [+]
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This past Thursday, the Stanford Faculty Senate condemned the Covid-19-related actions of Dr. Scott Atlas. It was the latest Stanford rebuke of Atlas, a senior fellow at Stanford’s Hoover Institution and more recently an increasingly controversial special assistant to President Donald Trump for coronavirus issues.
Earlier this month, the University had issued a statement that read in part, “Dr. Atlas has expressed views that are inconsistent with the university’s approach in response to the pandemic. Dr. Atlas’s statements reflect his personal views, not those of the Hoover Institution or the university.”
But now, the Stanford faculty has also weighed in with a strong statement of disapproval. At its Nov. 19 meeting, 85% of the Faculty Senate voted in favor of a resolution, introduced by members of the Faculty Senate Steering Committee that specified several actions Atlas has taken that “promote a view of COVID-19 that contradicts medical science.”
The resolution cited the following actions by Atlas:
- discouraging the use of masks and other protective measures,
- misrepresenting knowledge and opinion regarding the management of pandemics,
- endangering citizens and public officials,
- showing disdain for established medical knowledge and
- damaging Stanford’s reputation and academic standing.
The resolution stated that Atlas’ behavior is “anathema to our community, our values and our belief that we should use knowledge for good.” And it reserved special criticism of Atlas’ Twitter message that the people of Michigan should “rise up” against new public health measures introduced by Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer to try to bring the virus under better control.
“As elected representatives of the Stanford faculty, we strongly condemn his behavior,” the resolution states. “It violates the core values of our faculty and the expectations under the Stanford Code of Conduct, which states that we all ‘are responsible for sustaining the high ethical standards of this institution.”’
The Stanford Senate also called on university leadership to “forcefully disavow Atlas’ actions as objectionable on the basis of the university’s core values and at odds with our own policies and guidelines concerning COVID-19 and campus life.” It did not take the next step and request that the university explore possible sanctions against Atlas, which many outside the university have called for.
Stanford President Marc Tessier-Lavigne said he was “deeply troubled by the views by Dr. Atlas, including his call to ‘rise up’ in Michigan.” While acknowledging that Atlas had later attempted to clean up his offensive Twitter comments, he maintained that the tweet “was widely interpreted as an undermining of local health authorities, and even a call to violence.” Insisting that Stanford will maintain its commitment to free speech and academic freedom, President Tessier-Lavigne Atlas indicated that Atlas had the freedom to express his own opinions.
“But we also believe that inflammatory remarks of the kind at issue here by someone with the prominence and influence of Dr. Atlas have no place in the context of the current global health emergency,” he said. “We’re therefore compelled to distance the university from Dr. Atlas’s views in the strongest possible terms.”
Atlas faced additional disapproval from another of Stanford’ high-profile faculty members. Condoleezza Rice, George W. Bush’s National Security Advisor and Secretary of State and now the Tad and Dianne Taube Director of the Hoover Institution, called Atlas’ recent tweet “offensive and well beyond the boundaries of what is appropriate for someone in a position of authority, such as the one he holds.”
A few Stanford faculty expressed concern over whether the Senate’s resolution would have a chilling effect on academic freedom and freedom of speech. One example was John Etchemendy, former provost at Stanford and now a named professor in the School of Humanities and Sciences and the Denning Family Co-Director of the Stanford Institute for Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence.
According to Etchemendy, “As far as the statements that have been made by Atlas, as a private citizen he has the right to make those statements. I am troubled by the idea that a person who has those rights to speak and to assert certain things – however outrageous – have fewer rights to speak, given that they are Stanford faculty. I find that to be contrary to what is, I think, the highest value of the university, which is the value and promotion of free speech and open dialogue.”
But, Etchemendy’s concerns notwithstanding, it appears, in the end, that Stanford has been able so far to straddle a narrow fence fairly effectively. It has not trampled on the values of academic freedom and free speech, but it has stood for the importance of scholarly expertise and scientific consensus over the influence of fringe ideas and political ideology.
