This is as important as ever to include on my personal webpage.
Academics, scholars, authors, artists, scientists, educators, and any career professional engaged in artistic expression, education, historical analysis, scientific discovery, philosophical argument, theological heterodoxy, and/or political debate should be feeling a cold chill down their spines in the United States.
Our public institutions are being systematically dismantled. Experts are being portrayed as a public menace for political advantage. Tech megacorporations and their obscenely wealthy executives and financiers are profiting from the algorithmic sowing of disinformation, disagreement, and rage.
Perhaps most unnerving is the rapidly unfolding threat to free speech and free expression.
Public scholars and artists should be speaking more, not less, but are being intimidated by political ideologues using their influence to lean on institutions, both private and public, non-profit and for-profit, left and right, to stifle dissent, enforce conformity, silence experts, and amplify cranks.
A concerted effort led by government officials and their political allies seeks to rob academics, artists, and others of their livelihood on the basis of their speech and expertise. The Vice President of the United States encouraged supporters to drum people out of their jobs for commenting on the murder of conservative podcaster Charlie Kirk. The US State Department is scouring visa applicants for any social media content they believe is celebrating or simply “making light” of Kirk’s death. Health and Human Services Secretary Robert Kennedy Jr. is purging US health agencies of career professionals and other experts and replacing them with vaccine skeptics.
I am proud to admit I am a Star Wars fan. In the Star Wars mythos, Mon Mothma was introduced in the first trilogy as the leader of the rebellion. The character was revisited by creator Tony Gilroy in the Disney+ (1) series Andor in 2022 and for a second season in 2025. In season 2 of Andor, Mon Mothma, wonderfully portrayed by Genevieve O’Reilly, said,
“The death of truth is the ultimate victory of evil”
Suppressing the truth is indeed a sort of evil. Preventing people from speaking the truth robs others the opportunity to hear the truth. Flooding our discourse with bullshit (2) drowns out the truth until it is barely recognizable. Once the truth is censored or diluted in misinformation, the powerful may replace it with whatever self-serving fiction they like.
So. Speak out. Speak up. Free speech is a constitutional right of all Americans, but for artists, scientists, and other public intellectuals, it is not just an individual right but a responsibility. We do not simply have the right to speak truths, but the obligation to speak truths, especially to the powerful. If creatives are silenced and experts are sidelined, then the American experiment as we know it will slowly, or not so slowly, fade.
Know your rights. Examine your institution’s policies. If your employer’s policies suppress the free speech of artists and experts, then, if you have the means and opportunity, quit. If you do not have the means or opportunity to change jobs then work within the system you are given and push that system to its limits. You likely have more rights than you think.
My employer is Marshall University. As a public institution of higher education, Marshall is obligated to protect the free speech rights of its students and employees and recognize the academic freedoms of its faculty. In addition to being “entitled to full freedom of research” and “freedom in the classroom in discussing their subject”, faculty speech is free from “institutional discipline or restraint” so long as they declare they are speaking for themselves (Marshall University Board of Governors, rule AA-16).
Again. For clarity. I will reiterate. In accordance with Marshall University Board of Governors rule AA-16.
The views expressed here are my own and do not represent the views of Marshall University.
These organizations exist to ensure the protection of individual liberties and shield education from the imposition of political partisanship, religious indoctrination, and misinformation.
Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression
Freedom from Religion Foundation
American Civil Liberties Union
American Association of University Professors
National Center for Science Education
To show that 2025 has yet to run short on hypocrisy or irony, the parent company of Disney+ indefinitely pulled the Jimmy Kimmel Show under pressure from the Federal Communications Commission for the host’s comments on the murder of Charlie Kirk.
Frankfurt, Harry G. 2005. On Bullshit. Princeton University Press.