The academic world is great at creating useless research that amounts to one gigantic boondoggle. Witness the millions of wasted public dollars that fund scientists to do useless research on animals that have minimal, if not zero relevance to humans.
That’s unfortunately the state of most research based on animal experiments. Ninety percent of animal studies failed to lead to therapies for humans, according to a study reported in the British Medical Journal.
But that’s also standard operating procedure in the academy. Careers are built on it.
So it doesn’t surprise me when faced with a real-life issue on campus like protecting free speech, the largest public research university system has come up with the only thing it knows how to do.
Let’s study it!
UC President Janet Napolitano, now experienced in higher ed as well as government bureaucracies at the state and federal levels, has announced the launch of the National Center for Free Speech and Civic Engagement.
In an op-ed in USA TODAY, Napolitano writes: “Cognizant of both the enduring constitutional principles of free speech and the nature of our changing times, the center and its roster of fellows will focus on addressing whether and how students’ relationship to the First Amendment has fundamentally shifted from the 1960s—and how to restore trust in the value and importance of free speech among students and society at large.”
