Cornell's New Dean, Bob Harrington, Asked Jay Bhattacharya & Eran Bendavid to stop talking to the press about COVID policy, per B's account

submitted by penelopepnortneyBecome ungovernable from vinayprasadmdmph.substack.com

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[–]3andfro 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

Same vein as this (you may have posted this originally):

Our findings point to the central role played by media organizations, and especially by information technology companies, in attempting to stifle debate over COVID-19 policy and measures. In the effort to silence alternative voices, widespread use was made not only of censorship, but of tactics of suppression that damaged the reputations and careers of dissenting doctors and scientists, regardless of their academic or medical status and regardless of their stature prior to expressing a contrary position. In place of open and fair discussion, censorship and suppression of scientific dissent has deleterious and far-reaching implications for medicine, science, and public health.

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11024-022-09479-4

[–]penelopepnortneyBecome ungovernable[S] 4 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 0 fun5 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

It was the scope and scale of the censorship, from the government to media and social media to medical licensing boards and academia, that was the tell. When so many people work so hard to prevent your hearing something, you know it's the exact thing you need to hear.

[–]penelopepnortneyBecome ungovernable[S] 4 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 0 fun5 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Lockdown was notably not part of pre-pandemic playbooks. DA Henderson himself was critical of this idea. It was thought antithetical to the values of free society, and Sweden notably engaged in protective measures without resorting to the worst excesses of lockdown strategy. The policy on lockdown was reversed by Fauci and Brix and largely because they took inspiration from the oppressive Chinese regime. These two leaders failed immensely.

It was clear that Jay Bhattacharya and others were intensely critical of lockdowns. Eran Bendavid likely was— but his views are not fully articulated— and eventually he went silent. (probably because his chair was harassing him).

Against this background, came the Santa Clara seroprevalance study. I personally think it was a valiant attempt, but not perfect. The real question was why the CDC with their 40,000 employees were not running the same analysis at 20 cities every week, and why random faculty had to do it. This was yet another CDC failure.

Consider the role of universities in the Spring of 2020. If they wanted to be useful they would have held a series of debates about what we were doing.

Yet, no university did this. Not a single university had the courage to debate policy. The leaders were scared to host debates. Scared of the mob response. Scared to disagree with Anthony Fauci...

Now consider that Eran Bendavid and Jay had chosen to enter the fray. Jay is a full professor with tenure. Eran is a junior faculty. They were both honestly purs[u]ing the policy they thought was best.

Then, Bob Harrington the chair essentially tells them to stay quiet. Why? Because people complain to him. Jay doesn’t go quiet. He is old enough to not give a fuck. But Eran does eventually go entirely quiet. Mission 1/2 accomplished.

...administrators who don’t stand up for academic freedom are rewarded. A class of faculty of career bureaucrats has taken over most universities. The primary goals are buying or merging with local medical centers, and public private partnerships. Universities do not serve their societal role of promoting discourse and debate, and shielding faculty with views that may initially be unpopular, but ultimately vindicated (like Jay and Eran)

If universities refuse to defend academic freedom, they should be taxed like any other corporation whose mission is to grow their revenue.