An Open Letter to Professor Jess Adkins on His Giving the MIT Lecture that Dorian Abbot Was Disinvited From

Dear Professor Adkins,

Congratulations on being selected to give the 2022 John Carlson Lecture at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

I'm writing to urge you to use this opportunity to talk not just about science but about academic freedom. You know, of course, how MIT disinvited Dorian Abbot last year. He was invited to talk about his research area, exoplanet atmospheres, but after a group of graduate students and junior faculty complained that he’d published an article in Newsweek opposing Diversity-Inclusion-Equity (DIE) in favor of Merit-Fairness-Equality (MFE), the invitation was retracted a month before he was to visit.

Should you accept the honor of giving the Carlson Lecture when it is so tainted by politics?

Yes, I think. You were right to accept despite the political correctness requirement the Lecture has for its honorees— if you use the opportunity to criticize that requirement. It’s morally acceptable to accept an invitation even if it is politically tainted if you can use the occasion to reduce the evil rather than reward it. One way would be to take five minutes to condemn your hosts for the Abbot Affair, either at the start or the end of your talk. Something like:

"While I am gratified to be chosen to give the John Carlson Lecture, the lecture has a stained reputation. It became a symbol of intolerance and the politicization of science after Professor Dorian Abbot was disinvited last year. That disinvitation was inexcusable. Scientists should be not chosen for lectures, awards, or jobs based on their political views.

A scientist's views on university offices of Diversity-Equity-and-Inclusion do not bear on his ability to talk about exoplanet atmospheres. MIT owes Professor Abbot an apology. MIT did assemble a committee after the Abbot disinvitation, and is seriously considering a statement of principles and specific recommendations to prevent such a thing from happening again, though I hear the committee was told not to investigate the Abbot affair. So I do not give up hope for MIT as a nonpolitical institution, and I am very happy to have had the chance to speak to you today."

For other ideas on what you might say, take a look at Professor Jerry Coyne’s post, “MIT proposes its own free-expression statement” in his blog, Why Evolution Is True. What you say could make a difference. I hear that the free speech statement proposed by the committee that was formed is now facing opposition from faculty who plan to propose amendments to water it down. I can guess you are reluctant to speak out, because you scientists, like we economists, are generally timid, scholarly, people who are inclined to hide under the desk when shots are fired. But we do have a duty to overcome our shyness, especially if we are not too shy to accept public honors.

I’ve emailed you twice about this, but you didn’teply. Thus, I think an open letter is appropriate. I hope to make not just you but other scholars think about the ethics of cooperation with politicized science and to stimulate discussion of what is moral, and what is collaboration.

I’m curious to see how people in science and the wider intellectual community respond to whatever you decide to do.

Yours truly,

Prof. Eric Rasmusen (retired)

MIT Ph.D. ‘84, economics