It’s time again for the Minding the Campus (MTC) Trofim Lysenko Award for the Suppression of Academic Speech. Named after the notorious Stalinist pseudoscientist whose crackpot agronomist theories—and persecution of those with the temerity to challenge them—led to the deaths of millions, the MTC Lysenko Award calls attention to those in academia who promote or advocate the silencing of academic inquiry and speech, especially where the motive for doing so is based on political disagreement.

Past recipients of the award have included Williams College professor and department chair Phoebe Cohen, one of the keyboard commandos behind the online mob that led the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) to shamefully cancel its invitation of the University of Chicago geophysicist Dorian Abbot to present MIT’s annual Carlson Lecture—in which Prof. Abbot would have discussed “Climate and the Potential for Life on Other Planets.”

Williams and her fellow harpies sought to deplatform Dr. Abbot because he wrote that university hiring and admissions should be based on individual merit, not on identity group membership. When asked by the New York Times whether she had any concerns about academic freedom and robust debate, she dismissed such concerns, reasoning that “[t]his idea of intellectual debate and rigor as the pinnacle of intellectualism comes from a world in which white men dominated.” Prof. Abbot had the last laugh as Princeton hosted his lecture—thousands attended online—and the negative publicity from the imbroglio forced MIT to revisit its free speech policies.

Kansas University (KU) School of Law Associate Dean for Academic and Student Affairs Leah Terranova, who brazenly attempted to strongarm the KU Federalist Society to cancel a seminar by noted First Amendment attorney and legal scholar Jordan Lorence of the Alliance Defending Freedom, has also received the reward. While unsuccessful—unlike cowardly MIT department chair Robert van der Hilst, who caved to the Twitter mob and cancelled Dorian Abbot’s appearance, the KU Federalist Society leadership refused to be intimidated—her actions led Kansas Supreme Court Justice Caleb Stegall to resign in disgust from his longstanding adjunct professor position at the school and to excoriate the KU Law administration for its shocking abandonment of free speech and inquiry principles.

Past “dishonorable mentions” have included MIT’s Robert van der Hilst, University of Pennsylvania Law School dean Theodore Ruger, Georgetown Law School dean William Treanor, the University of North Texas, Princeton University, and Saint Vincent College.

MTC is currently collecting nominees for the next Lysenko Award and will choose a slate of disreputable candidates from such nominees. This time, however, MTC will present the list of contenders in a future article and have its readers vote on which one receives the award.

So, if you know of a worthy potential recipient, someone in academia who tries to prevent or punish academic speech and inquiry for political reasons, submit your nominations along with a short explanation of why you think they deserve to be considered for this survey by June 7, 2024.

Image: Wikimedia Commons, Public Domain