The vaunted first amendment guaranteeing free speech has become a bitter and twisted joke
As I’ve seen other post about, there’s no easy way to calculate the impact and lost value of the research that won’t be done, the breakthroughs that won’t be made, and the collaborations that won’t happen as a result of the oligarchy currently taking over the US political system.
In this post, Prof. Christina Pagel gives just one small example of the self-censorship ‘just in case’ that will be happening everywhere. I didn’t travel to the US last year because it felt like an unsafe to visit; I sure as hell ain’t going this year.
Relatedly, I’d highly recommend listening to Episode #324 (“What’s Good for the Goose”) of Dan Carlin’s Common Sense podcast as it puts current events in a wider context.
A colleague and I would like to write an academic paper on the potential impact of US funding cuts to global health programmes. Our ideal co-author is an international expert newly based in the US, and they would like to do it. But we are all worried that doing so will expose them to the risk of having their academic visa cancelled, being detained and eventually deported - no matter how solid the science and how academic and dry our language. We are especially fearful because they are brown.
My colleagues who have been writing about the new administration, or the situation in Gaza, in academic journals, on substack or on social media are cancelling work trips to the US. I too would not feel safe to go now, given how openly I have criticised the administration. Even a 1% chance of being denied entry or shipped to a detention centre is too high.
When I said these words out loud to my husband today I had to stop for a moment to let it sink in. Foreign scientists in the US are scared to publish anything perceived as critical for fear of being bundled off the street to a detention centre. Foreign scientists abroad are scared to go to the US because they have voiced criticism of the state. The US is actively cracking down on perceived dissenters and foreigners are the most vulnerable to arbitrary detention and lack of due legal process. The vaunted first amendment guaranteeing free speech has become a bitter and twisted joke.
Source: Diving into Data & Decision making
Image: Floris Van Cauwelaert