Thread by @PeterHotez

Many thanks @Finneganporter while i predicted some of this, a part that caught me off guard in the pandemic was the rise of contrarian intellectuals from conservative think tanks or even Harvard Stanford so desperate for relevance they aligned themselves with far right extremists

https://twitter.com/Finneganporter/status/1471091346941394944

And then you begin to see how authoritarian or totalitarian regimes unfold. A common thread from my read of political thought leaders in this space like @anneapplebaum @ruthbenghiat is how authoritarianism relies in part on intellectual cover and Stanford Harvard others delivered

As a professor who trained or taught at similar great universities I’m interested in understanding how professors or even whole institutions lost their moral compass during the pandemic and were so eager to align with authoritarian leaders new outlets podcasters

Maybe this always happens in times of great instability? Or maybe it reflects misplaced values of university administrators/boards? Where building endowments is all? Where many College Presidents are no longer scholars/thinkers but selected to keep Universities off the headlines?

Worth exploring I believe