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April 30th, 2010
Minority Views Unsafe at Harvard Law; Dean Betrays Marketplace of Ideas
If you value a true marketplace of ideas, beware of Harvard Law School unless you are able to handle being denounced by the dean. According to Dean Martha Minow, it is shameful even to be intellectually open to considering certain scientific questions.
The case in point involves a third-year law student who, in a private e-mail to a small number of colleagues, examined the possibility of ... well, does it matter to you what the possibility is? Or are some ideas simply so toxic that questions about them cannot ever be asked, the research never done?
For the sake of human inquiry and knowledge a free university in a free society should not place any topic entirely out of bounds for discussion because an academic community, in human humility, does not really commit itself to declaring which view is true until we see the conclusive evidence. Even then, we must acknowledge that we may be wrong when new, unexpected evidence comes in.
That is apparently not how Harvard Law School functions, however, under Dean Minow. Put on your academic hat and read what the third-year law student wrote, in relevant part, according to the Above the Law blog, along ...