Journal of Controversial Ideas

In January 2025, nearly 200 scholars across numerous disciplines gathered on the campus of the University of Southern California to discuss modern-day censorship in the sciences; many more participated virtually. Recordings of the talks and panels, available online, have already been viewed over 300,000 times. The proceedings of the conference are published in this special issue of the Journal of Controversial Ideas. In what follows, we introduce the topics discussed at the conference and highlighted in this special issue and related publications. Full article

In the United States, the Institutional Review Board (IRB) derives its power from the 1978 Belmont Report and the (Revised) Common Rule, effective in 2019, that propagates its authority to multiple federal agencies including NIH. The IRB serves as the local oversight committee protecting human subjects in social science and biomedical research. But how much protection is enough? And at what cost? We review several historical and modern cases as a means of illustrating the evolution of the IRB and its invasiveness. The cases correspond loosely to distinct eras in history that have been termed by Moreno, “Weak Protectionism,” “Moderate Protectionism,” and “Strong Protectionism.” We believe we have now descended into an era of “Hyper-Protectionism” in which the costs to science far outweigh the benefits to protection of human subjects. In response, we propose a set of guiding principles, the “Mudd Code,” aimed at restoring the balance between oversight and research efficiency and productivity. Full article

The integrity of the gender medicine research literature has been compromised, not only by censorship of correct articles, but also by censorship of critiques of articles with unsupported (for instance exaggerated), misleading or erroneous statements. Many such statements concern the evidence base, which can be evaluated rigorously using a key component of evidence-based medicine, systematic reviews of the evidence. These reviews currently find there is limited to very little confidence that estimates of benefit from (and sometimes harm from) medical gender intervention, that is, puberty blockers, hormones and/or surgeries, are likely to match true outcomes. Several medical societies and articles in medical journals have been claiming otherwise, misrepresenting the evidence base as a whole and/or relying upon unsupported or non-representative individual study findings or conclusions. For example, high likelihood of benefit and low risk of adverse outcomes from medical gender interventions are often claimed, while less invasive alternative treatment options are either omitted or mischaracterized. Other unsupported, erroneous or misleading statements occur when studies minimize or omit mention of significant limitations, or report findings or conclusions not supported by their own data; these are then sometimes quoted by others as well. In addition, correctly reported studies are sometimes misrepresented. Critiques which attempt to rectify such statements are frequently rejected. Some examples are presented here. Such rejections have stifled scientific debate, interfering with the continual scrutiny and cross checks needed to maintain accuracy in the research literature. Currently, erroneous and unsupported statements circulate and repeat between journals and medical society guidelines and statements, misinforming researchers, clinicians, patients and the general public. Full article

Some celebrated defenses of free speech, academic freedom, and open inquiry rest on anti-free speech presuppositions. This paper offers an analysis of these pseudo-defenses of campus free speech and explains how they each threaten to undermine their own goals in the long run. The paper closes with a recommendation for a relatively easy fix. Full article

Polling data from the leading science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) university in the US shows that a significant degree of self-censorship is practiced by the faculty. This self-censorship stems from a fear of retaliation for expressing heterodox viewpoints, with senior administration, academic leadership, and students being the most cited sources of potential retaliation. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)’s experience suggests that similar self-censorship is likely practiced within STEM disciplines in other universities. MIT’s example also shows that the STEM faculty can respond by uniting to protect freedom of expression and academic freedom on campus. Full article

For the first time in history, women hold substantial cultural and institutional power. Men and women differ, on average, in their values: women are more harm-averse, equity-oriented, and prone to resolving conflict through social exclusion. As a result, shifting sex compositions can bring palpable cultural change. The transition has been particularly dramatic in academia, where women were once almost entirely excluded and now constitute majorities. I review research showing that sex differences in self-reported academic priorities correspond to recent institutional changes, including (i) preference for equity (e.g., DEI initiatives, grade inflation), (ii) prioritization of harm-avoidance (e.g., trigger warnings, safe spaces), and (iii) increased ostracism (e.g., cancel culture). I then expand my analysis to other trends that may be partly attributable to the ascendancy of women, including the rapid success of the LGBT community, animal rights progress, rising mental health concerns, and increased accountability for competent but unethical leaders. Women, once dubbed “worriers” by evolutionary scholars, participate in culture as warriors for justice. This inflection point offers an opportunity to examine the costs and benefits of both the male-oriented status quo and the emerging female moral order, so that societies may draw on the best aspects of both. Full article

The 20th century witnessed unimaginable atrocities perpetrated in the name of ideologies that stifled dissent in favour of political narratives, with numerous examples of resulting long-term societal harm. Despite clear historical precedents, calls to deal with dissent through censorship have risen dramatically. Most alarmingly, politically motivated censorship has risen in the academic community, where pluralism is most needed to seek truth and generate knowledge. Recent calls for censorship have come under the name of “consequences culture”, a culture structured around the inclusion of those sharing a particular narrative while imposing adverse consequences on those who dissent. Here, we place “consequences culture” in the historical context of totalitarian societies, focusing on the fate suffered by academics in those societies. We support our arguments with extensive references, many of which are not widely known in the West. We invite the broader scientific community to consider yet again what are timeless subjects: the importance of freely exchanging views and ideas; the freedom to do so without fear of intimidation; the folly of undermining such exchanges with distortions; and the peril of attempting to eliminate exchanges by purging published documents from the official record. We conclude with suggestions on where to go from here. Full article

“Censorship in the Sciences: Interdisciplinary Perspectives,” was a remarkable conference presenting a range of views on why free inquiry matters and how to restore it. Unfortunately, speakers dodged the central question: Why should censors stop their bad behavior? Here, I argue that politics often involves coercion. If one side uses coercion and the other does not, we all know who will win. We can only stop organized censorship of teaching, research, and speakers by making such behavior risky, by firing the censors, as they have long fired us. We now lack the power to do so, but over time, with the help of policies created by elected and appointed leaders, we can build the social and bureaucratic infrastructure to fire the censors and cancel the cancelers. I conclude with examples of legal and bureaucratic reforms likely to increase the risks faced by censors. If we fail to make their behaviors risky, then both higher education and democracy will succumb to a new dark age. The stakes are that high. Full article

Censorship of scholars suppresses academic freedom. In this article, we describe how academic communities can unite to defend academic freedom. We present the story of the Academic Freedom Alliance – a single-cause, non-partisan organization dedicated to the protection of academic freedom – as an example of an organizational response to censorship and the suppression of scholarship. Full article

Academics in the United States face threats to their intellectual and expressive freedoms from both sides of the political spectrum. These threats are comparable to or greater than the threats of the McCarthy era, by some measures. However, far more academics self-censor than are censored by others. Although self-censorship may sometimes be rational from a careerist perspective, here I argue that academic self-censorship is often irrational. Theoretical and empirical evidence suggests that academic reward systems favor intellectual risk-taking in the long run, on average. In contrast, academics often avoid rational expressive risks due to fears of adverse non-careerist consequences and short-term incentives for risk avoidance. Personality traits correlated with risk aversion may be overrepresented among those who self-select into academia. Academics’ large-scale self-censorship behaviors create a free-rider problem and underappreciated risks to academia’s value proposition, its public trust, and, by extension, its funding and student enrollment. Self-censorship also makes free expression appear more transgressive, which may magnify both its real and perceived risks. Despite ongoing censorship threats, U.S. academia remains one of the expressively freest professions in the history of the world. Yet our freedoms are only useful – to ourselves and society – if we have the courage to use them. Full article

Gender transition enables some born men and women to escape from the constraints gender norms impose. But the adoption of gender transition as a remedy for gender misfits who cannot comply with their assigned gender norms is a conservative strategy that does not challenge the imposition of social norms that oppress gender misfits, of whom I am one. Trans individuals, who identify with and want to be identified as members of a sex other than their sex assigned of birth, should have the option of gender transition and, arguably, be recognized as members of their chosen sex afterwards. But gender misfits who are not trans should not have to transition to escape from expectations, obligation, and restrictions assigned on the basis of biological sex, with which they cannot comply. Full article