A few days ago, in this thread on #EricKaufmann's #AcademicFreedom report, I thought I would let other points slide in favour of this point: that the upper end of this 7-18% of NA faculty who he says support academic freedom violations is inflated by bad survey design. 1/
But my mind gets stuck on certain issues sometimes and this time it kept reminding me of what I didn't elaborate. So here goes: the lower end of this figure of 7-18% of NA faculty is inflated, too, by the choices Kaufmann made in processing his survey results. Let me explain. 2/
Here are two of the questions that led to the 7% lower edge of that range. You'll note that half the participants were given option A and the other half option B (or so I presume). 3/

Take item 44:

A: STUDENTS are making "efforts" to let a faculty member--who has shown research on how children of 2 biological parents do better than children of a single or adoptive parents--"know that they should find work elsewhere."

B: ADMINISTRATION makes that effort. 4/
Every university has students who were raised by either a single parent or by adoptive parents. Faculty members know that. Every faculty member has friends & family who were so raised. Many faculty in the social sciences and humanities are aware of research on the topic. 5/
The 50% of surveyed faculty who received option B--the administration makes "efforts" to let the faculty member "know they should find work elsewhere"It--I would sincerely expect to respond with "oppose." It is a violation of #AcademicFreedom for admin to make such effort. 6/
It is our collegial duty to protect each other's #AcademicFreedom by opposing such efforts if they are made by administration on the basis that a faculty member presents what sounds like bad (but not falsified or unethical) research. 7/
I agree with Kaufmann on this half of the question. Those who responded to 44.B with saying they "support" that the administration is suggesting to their colleague they need to leave the uni, those are indeed supporting a campaign that directly violates academic freedom. 8/
And that is not good.

We need to talk to these colleagues about academic freedom.

9/
But things are not as clear-cut in option 44.A. Here, students are making the suggestion that this faculty member should find work elsewhere. A number of faculty who received that survey option will have had sympathy with the students--who do not control faculty employment. 10/
Some of these faculty will, in fact, have seen it as a principled stance in favour of students' #FreeSpeech that in their response they "support" the students making this effort. The survey question leaves it open to interpretation what "support" means. 11/
"Yes, I support students expressing dismay about shoddy research that impacts their lives! Of course, they may make overdrawn demands that for reasons of #AcademicFreedom cannot be followed!"

That is stance in support of students' #FreeSpeech, not against #AcademicFreedom. 12/
For participants who received 44.A & responded "support", we cannot conclude that their support--and it's unclear what they imagine this support looks like--for a student campaign to let a faculty member "know they should find work elsewhere" is violating academic freedom. 13/
If there's a file with survey response data, I haven't looked at it, so I don't know the numbers. If we estimate that half who said "support" to question 44 said "support" to version 44.A, then we should take that out of calculating who is for violating academic freedom. 14/
That might mean we're down to 3.5-4% of North American faculty respondents who expressed support for a hypothetical campaign that directly violates #AcademicFreedom. Maybe it's a bit less, or a bit more. It doesn't appear to be the 7-18% that #EricKaufmann touts, however. 15/
Thanks to @MerkinMuffley5 and @ToyeSodade and others who I'm forgetting for earlier chats on this and similar reports. 16/

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More from @Katja_Thieme

18 Apr
I suspect my Twitter fights could be much improved if this pedagogical insight was put more consistently into practice. :)
I would like to come to a place where those who keep espousing the principle of "only ever talk about the data, not about the people who handle it" change their tune, you know? Reputation matters. People who through past discussion have shown themselves more trustworthy. . .
. . . in their production of quantitative work and its interpretation tend to produce more trustworthy interpretations. It matters to know that and to talk about it.
Read 4 tweets
18 Apr
Dear everyone,

Just a warning. My "Oooops." is very powerful. You might want to take a few steps back to keep yourselves safe given this "Oooops." is virulently defending censorship."

Don't blame me if the silly string hits you.

Yours,
Woke Sauron
Missing an opening quotation mark in the above tweet, sorry.
Read 6 tweets
17 Apr
This part is really important: “Mr. Galloway’s dismissal was also because of financial misconduct, dishonesty in the investigation of the complaint, alcohol consumption with students, and a previous instance of sexual relations with a student.”

#CdnPSE #UBC
The effect is real. Whether every tweet was fair and accurate is perhaps another question.
Read 4 tweets
15 Apr
As I mentioned, I've been looking at #EricKaufmann's report on #AcademicFreedom. I want to share another head-scratching moment with you today. 1/

My earlier thread:
Top of the report is a set of questions for which he received answers from 803 US scholars in social sciences & humanities. Here are questions 1-3 along with the graph representing the answers. In the report, the answer key is: 1. support, 2. oppose, 3. neither, 4. don't know. 2/ ImageImage
Participants were given 1 of 2 versions of each question with either students or admin campaigning. There is a difference between the two. We might question answers being lumped together into "students/the administration" as well as the very odd "find work elsewhere" phrasing. 3/ Image
Read 18 tweets
14 Apr
James Lindsay is a shitty writer who consistently fails at constructing and editing meaningful sentences.

This abomination of a sentence here, in Merkin's screen shot, boils down to the following main clause:

There is the bending of the university to the ideology. 1/
That's the key thing he's trying to say: There is the bending of the university to the ideology.

Silly, isn't it.

Everything else is needlessly puffed up around the main clause while also insufficiently connected to it. 2/
Starting at the end (because it's simpler):

There is the bending of the university to the ideology.
That has to be appreciated for what it represents.

(What does it represent? Why does it have to be appreciated? Nobody knows.) 3/
Read 7 tweets
13 Apr
I read this.

I was curious about the arguments against the Scottish hate crime law.

The only claim that actually engaged with the law was that the verb “stir up” is metaphorical in an unfortunate way.
Nicolas is right.

I did not do it justice.

Behold!

Take 1.

Take 2.

The article, "a welcome counterblast" according to noted historian Niall Ferguson, objects to the hate crime law and its use of the verb "stir up" with the following argument. Image
Read 5 tweets

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