In the good old days of American education, professors could speak their minds freely. Disagreements would often result, with others disputing the case that the speaker had made. The solid consensus, however, was that academic freedom must never be curtailed, since intellectual progress depends on the exchange of ideas, just as John Stuart Mill had argued in On Liberty.
Perhaps the most disturbing trend in our colleges and universities today is the erosion of support for free speech. Professors who now take controversial positions have to worry about more than mere disagreement; they have to worry about punishment for having expressed “wrong” thoughts. A host of topics are now treated as sacred cows, where the official, establishment view may not be questioned. At the top of that list is “diversity.” Because of the intellectual fragility of the diversity obsession, its defenders usually respond to criticism not with reason but with punishments.
Because of the intellectual fragility of the diversity obsession, its defenders respond to criticism not with reason but with punishments.Norman Wang is a professor at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center (UPMC), where he has been on the faculty since 2008, specializing in cardiology. His troubles at the school began in March 2020, after he published an article in the Journal of the American Heart Association (JAHA) entitled “Diversity, Inclusion, and Equity: Evolving Race and Ethnicity Considerations for the Cardiology Workforce in the U.S. from 1969 to 2019.” The article had been reviewed and accepted in the usual process.
In it, Wang reviewed the history of racial preferences in medical schools, then argued that the current obsession with meeting group quotas to achieve “diversity” was both illegal (even before the Supreme Court’s 2023 ruling against racial preferences in SFFA v. Harvard) and ill-conceived as a measure to increase the number of minority doctors. Here is the concluding paragraph: “Evolution to strategies that are neutral to race and ethnicity is essential. Ultimately, all who aspire to a profession in medicine and cardiology must be assessed as individuals on the basis of their personal merits, not their race and ethnic identities.”
Those words are reminiscent of Dr. Martin Luther King’s hope for an America where people are judged on the content of their character, not on the color of their skin. But King’s vision is no longer one approved by the “woke” education establishment.
Shortly after the publication of Wang’s article, it came under attack from Twitter users, who denounced it as “racist.” In July 2020, UPMC officials who had been alerted to Wang’s heresies by the Twitter mob sprang into action against him. On July 31, they summoned him to a meeting with Dr. Samir Saba, chief of UPMC’s cardiology division, and Dr. Kathryn Berlacher, another faculty member, to discuss the article. Wang said that he stood firmly behind it. That could not be tolerated.
After the meeting, Saba removed Wang from his position as director of the Clinical Cardiology Fellowship. The next day, he informed Wang that the views expressed in his article “contradict[ed] UPMC’s core values” and showed that he was unfit to function in any leadership position.
Nor was that all. On August 4, Saba told Wang that he was now prohibited from making contact with UPMC students. He had decided that, because of Wang’s skeptical views regarding racial preferences, it was “unsafe” for him to associate with students.
Wang’s holding of “wrong” thoughts about diversity made him “unsafe,” as if he had some terrible, easily communicated disease.So, Wang’s holding of “wrong” thoughts about diversity made him “unsafe,” as if he had some terrible, easily communicated disease. That’s typical of the way “progressives” deal with dissent—they declare it dangerous.
The school and the Twitter mob kept up the assault against Wang’s article, claiming that it contained “misquotations” that the editors had somehow missed in their review. They demanded that the article be retracted. Wang was not given any opportunity to respond to the criticism before JAHA caved in and withdrew the article, complete with an apology for having published it. Subsequently, JAHA ran an editorial to atone for its transgression, claiming that Wang had “misrepresented” facts in the article.
You can still read the article, despite its “retracted” status, and decide if you think it needed an apology, much less being consigned to the trash bin. Suppose that Wang had written an article about cardiology and other cardiologists had disputed it; undoubtedly, JAHA would have published their arguments and Wang’s responses to them. That would be the scientific method in action—argument and counter-argument. But those rules don’t apply to leftist ideological views, criticism of which now must be silenced and punished.
Have Wang’s rights been violated?
He believes so and, with legal assistance from the Center for Individual Rights, filed suit against UPMC and the administrators responsible for punishing him for having written an article that they disagreed with—and also against JAHA and UPMC officials for having libeled him with false accusations of substandard scholarship and academic dishonesty. You can read the complaint here.
First, Wang argues that his First Amendment rights have been violated. He was speaking as an individual citizen on a topic of public concern. Under the First Amendment, public entities like UPMC may not impose penalties upon employees for exercising their right of freedom of speech.
Second, Wang argues that UPMC discriminated against him in violation of Section VI of the 1964 Civil Rights Act.
Third, he argues that UPMC officials and JAHA defamed him by publicly claiming that he had written a “racist” article containing deliberate falsehoods, actions calculated to harm his professional career.
Many university officials prefer to placate radicals who cannot tolerate dissent from their views.Fourth, he argues that JAHA committed a breach of contract against him by retracting his article without providing him an opportunity to cure any defects it might have contained.
Fifth, he argues that UPMC officials, knowing of his contract with JAHA, tortiously interfered with that contract by demanding that it retract his article.
Finally, Wang argues that UPMC officials violated the Pennsylvania Whistleblower Law by punishing him for having written an article that pointed to illegal discrimination on their part.
Nearly four years after the case was filed, it is still before the trial court. The defendants sought to have it dismissed, but in April 2022 the judge ruled that the case could proceed. In April 2023, Wang added to his complaint a further claim that UPMC officials violated his rights by their retaliation against him for speech protected by the First Amendment.
Norman Wang’s case is similar to others where faculty members have been subjected to punishment by their schools merely for daring to say things that upset woke zealots. It is evident that many university officials prefer to placate radicals who cannot tolerate dissent from their views, rather than tell the complainers, “If you disagree, then use your speech rights to try to persuade people that you’re right.”
It’s also evident that formerly reputable publications now cave in when those same zealots insist that they retract published articles rather than allowing the traditional scientific approach of argument and counter-argument to unfold.
A judgment for Dr. Wang in this case would send a message to the defendants that they will suffer costs for having trampled upon his rights to freedom of speech. No message could be more important.
George Leef is director of external relations at the James G. Martin Center for Academic Renewal.