As an undergraduate student at the University of Virginia, I made a point to regularly walk by New Cabell Hall because of a plaque there that bore this inscription:

“For here we are not afraid to follow truth wherever it may lead, nor to tolerate any error so long as reason is left free to combat it.”

Pulled from a letter by Thomas Jefferson in which he described his vision for UVA, this embodied what I understood to be the core purpose of higher education: the rigorous and unflinching pursuit of truth—nonpartisan and, by its very nature, meritocratic. I viewed academics as intellectual heavyweights whose ability to articulate and argue for their theories was as important as their ability to throw in the towel and admit they were wrong. After all, following the truth wherever it may lead requires an ability to avoid the paths you may want to take in order to travel the path you should take.

By the time I decided to give up tenure and the position of Chair of Psychology at the University of Alabama in Huntsville, I felt as if I were living in a world that bore little resemblance to Jefferson’s vision. Academia had become a business, and while being a professor was a great job, too often we were being judged on quantity rather than quality. Quantity of publications, of research dollars, of students.

And just like any other kind of business, institutions of higher education had become beholden to their bottom lines. That meant being expected to cater to students rather than challenging them. Young people have always been more activist by nature than their elders. But faculty were always supposed to be a moderating influence on students—to harness students’ passion into lessons about how to think more clearly, not what to think. Now, too many professors actively seek to convert their mentees’ passion into outrage over the cause of the day.

Academia had become a business, and we were being judged on quantity rather than quality.

Activist faculty not only undermine the educational experience for students, but research as a whole, too. The eighteenth-century philosopher David Hume identified what has become known as the ‘is-ought’ problem. Put simply, you cannot logically derive what someone ought to do solely from an observation about what is true. For example, it is invalid to infer from the fact that it’s cold outside the claim that one ought to wear a coat, unless one smuggles in hidden moral assumptions. Empirical research should focus on what is true, not what ought to be done. Yet today, professional societies, DEI offices, and individual activist scholars constantly inject their moral presuppositions to bridge the gaps between the is and the ought. As a result, society has turned researchers into the high priests and priestesses of the day, with smug slogans like “Trust the science.”

If this deification were restricted to the public’s perception of the role of scientists, that would be bad enough. However, entire fields of science have been imbued by an element of praxis which has emboldened vocal, ideological minorities to self-righteously claim that they alone have the answer to society’s problems.

Research which focuses on the is can be debated using data. The ought can only be debated through long and deep conversations about moral presuppositions—a type of conversation only possible if there is viewpoint diversity, open inquiry, and the ability to have constructive disagreements, something we find to be increasingly rare on many campuses.

As just one example, if someone points out that there is compelling evidence of a ‘social contagion’ effect for gender dysphoria (Littman, 2017), they are typically met with moral outrage and suggestions that such data promotes the erasure of trans-identified people (see the controversy surrounding Diaz & Bailey, 2023). The data can only speak to what we can know empirically, yet so many academics jump immediately to the perceived ought. This topic is hardly the only “third rail” in research and teaching conversations.

This simply was not what I signed up for. I felt I couldn’t speak out pre-tenure for fear of any alleged moral transgressions being used against me in the tenure process. I didn’t want to speak out post-tenure because it could hurt the “business”, adversely affecting my colleagues. The sense of freedom I anticipated feeling after receiving tenure never arrived.

Meanwhile, although my line of research wasn't controversial, the things I was teaching were beginning to be. I found myself increasingly worried that lectures about sex differences or the science behind why trigger warnings are more harmful than good—or even accidentally using the wrong pronoun—would land me in front of an outrage mob. I stopped recording lectures so what I said couldn’t easily be clipped out of context. Perhaps I was overly cautious or unnecessarily concerned. But in talking to other faculty, I don’t think so.

This simply was not what I signed up for.

For the record, my former institution was about as good as I’ve seen as it relates to the issues that HxA cares about. I had some of the best and brightest colleagues that I could ask for, virtually none of whom share my beliefs on a variety of issues.

But the overall trend of higher education worries me; professors self-censoring not only diminishes the educational experience, it actively harms it. We are giving students the equivalent of a 15-minute introductory boxing class with no sparring and then telling them to confidently go sign up for a professional fight. We then wonder why some of them run around the ring screaming for help.

So, after five years as a professor, 50+ publications, $2.7 million in grant funding, being given tenure two years early, and serving as Department Chair, I decided to step away from the calling I once held in high esteem. My new job as a researcher in HxA’s Segal Center for Academic Pluralism makes me feel as if I might help solve the problems faced by faculty like me. And that’s why I gave up tenure.

Article Image by Fran_kie (used under license from Shutterstock.com).