Story at a glance
- Geophysics professor Dorian Abbot spoke at Princeton University on Thursday after the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) cancelled Abbot’s scheduled lecture due to a controversial op-ed.
- Princeton’s James Madison Program in Ideals scheduled Abbot’s lecture for the same day his scrapped MIT lecture would have taken place.
- Abbot previously wrote in an article on Substack that the social media response regarding his controversial opinion article led to MIT’s cancelling his invitation to deliver a distinguished lecture.
Geophysics professor Dorian Abbot spoke at Princeton University on Thursday after the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) cancelled Abbot’s scheduled lecture due to a controversial op-ed.
Abbot, a professor at The University of Chicago, and co-author Ivan Marinovic criticized in an article published in Newsweek efforts at American universities that focus on diversity, equity and inclusion, instead of an exclusive analysis of a prospective student’s merits.
Princeton’s James Madison Program in Ideals scheduled Abbot’s lecture for the same day his scrapped MIT lecture would have taken place.
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“We are not a scientific institute,” Princeton professor Robert P. George said in his introductory remarks, according to The New York Post. “However we believe that one of the enduring principles in our tradition of civic life, civic liberty, is free speech and academic freedom. And that is why we are hosting Dr. Abbot’s lecture.”
“We consider that all of us in academic life, all of us in intellectual life, all of us as Americans, have a stake in academic freedom everywhere, in civil liberty and freedom of speech, everywhere,” George added.
Abbot previously wrote in an article on Substack that the social media response regarding his controversial opinion article led to MIT’s cancelling his invitation to deliver a distinguished lecture.
“It worked. And quickly,” he said, adding that MIT “called to tell me that they would be cancelling the Carlson lecture this year in order to avoid controversy.”
Robert van der Hilst, the head of the department of Earth and Planetary Sciences at MIT argued that the university held the sole discretion to choose a speaker that best fits the school’s educational criteria.
“Besides freedom of speech, we have the freedom to pick the speaker who best fits our needs,” van der Hilst said, per The New York Times. “Words matter and have consequences.”
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