David Colquhoun has a website at University College London where he regularly debunks the claims of "medical" quacks. Recently a herbal medicine practitioner took offense at this debunking and threatened legal action against the university. The university responded by removing the website. Today the website has been restored [DC's Improbable Science] and University College London has published a press release explaining why [Joint statement by Professor Colquhoun and UCL].
While it's encouraging that the university decided to restore the website, the fact that it buckled to pressure in the first place is disturbing. What's the point of academic freedom if you abandon it whenever you're threatened with a lawsuit?
UCL has a long and outstanding liberal tradition and is committed to encouraging free and frank academic debate. The evidence (or lack thereof) for the claims made for health supplements is a matter of great public interest, and UCL supports all contributions to that debate. The only restriction it places on the use of its facilities is that its staff should use their academic freedom responsibly within the law.
To this end, the Provost and Professor Colquhoun have taken advice from a senior defamation Queen’s Counsel, and we are pleased to announce that Professor Colquhoun’s website – with some modifications effected by him on counsel’s advice - will shortly be restored to UCL’s servers. UCL will not allow staff to use its website for the making of personal attacks on individuals, but continues strongly to support and uphold Professor Colquhoun’s expression of uncompromising opinions as to the claims made for the effectiveness of treatments by the health supplements industry or other similar bodies.
I'm curious about the "minor modifications" and I'm troubled by the prohibition against "the making of personal attacks on individuals." It seems to me that such a prohibition could be used in a way that inhibits academic freedom. For example, would it prohibit a university Professor from criticizing Tony Blair for the war in Iraq? Would it block any negative comments about Prince Charles (pictured at left)? Does it mean that the UCL website is completely devoid of any negative comments about Richard Dawkins?Perhaps more importantly, does this mean that university Professors cannot point out on their websites the stupidity of administration officials such as UCL President and Provost Malcolm Grant?
4 comments :
would it prohibit a university Professor from criticizing Tony Blair for the war in Iraq?
I find this one interesting. Should a university professor be able to use public funds for a site offering opinions on an area where he is as unqualified as I am? Or should he be required to become "self-funding" if he wants to step well beyond his areas of expertise?
Oh, you can say bad things about Dawkins. He's militant.
Re personal attacks: indeed. Seems to me you could scrupulously focus your criticism entirely on someone's ideas and/or methodology and/or assumptions, say nothing of, say, their (ahem) mental fitness or competence directly, and I'd bet some lawyerly types could still find a way to argue you were getting all 'personal'. It's a nice sentiment and all, but methinks it doth open up opportunities for certain weasels who look for such things.
On another topic entirely: Man. Those royals and their hats...
Argument for abandoning the monarchy right there, y'ask me.
"Those royals and their hats..."
Indeed. Now I get what "birds of a feather" means.
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