My Hoover colleague and pal Alvin Rabushka writes:
An instance of the authority of native management is Sara Cody, the well being officer and public well being director of Santa Clara County. She dictated Stanford’s response to COVID, a “shelter-in-place” lockdown. The proof Atlas assembled and offered contradicted her directions to Santa Clara County residents, companies, and establishments. For that reason and others, 85 p.c of the members of the Stanford College Senate in late November 2020 voted to sentence him, solely the second occasion in Stanford historical past. The intervention of the previous provost, anxious about educational freedom, persuaded the Senate in opposition to recommending that Stanford self-discipline Atlas. Solely two of his Hoover Establishment colleagues publicly defended him.
In personal communication, Alvin knowledgeable me that I used to be not one of many two. I used to be stunned. I believed I had. I definitely did so with my physician and with my mates. And I did write this, which was an implicit public protection of Scott Atlas, however it was not even an implicit protection of his educational freedom.
So, on the document, I do defend Scott Atlas’s educational freedom. This protection is unbiased of any recommendation he gave to President Trump. However from what I’ve learn, his recommendation was usually fairly good. It’s simple to defend the tutorial freedom of somebody that you simply 90+ p.c agree with, as is the case with Scott.
However even when I had completely disagreed with Scott’s recommendation, I believe the Stanford College Senate was completely out of line.
