**1. Introduction**

"Protection, therefore, against the tyranny of the magistrate is not enough; there needs protection also against the tyranny of the prevailing opinion and feeling; against the tendency of society to impose, by other means than civil penalties, its own ideas and practices as rules of conduct on those who dissent from them ... "

> -John Stuart Mill (1859)

The suppression of a scholarship is well documented throughout human history. Scholars have faced censure, or worse, because they were unpopular with political and/or religious authorities, challenged majority public opinion, or researched a taboo idea. For example, in 399 B.C. Socrates was found guilty of "corrupting the youth of Athens" and sentenced to death. Galileo was declared a heretic by the Catholic Church in the early 17th century for his support of heliocentrism and ordered to abstain completely from teaching, defending, or even discussing it. He was later convicted of heresy a second time and placed under house arrest for the rest of his life. Other forms of scholarship suppression are more subtle and are driven by fear of the social consequences one may face for pursuing controversial scholarship. Nicolaus Copernicus and Charles Darwin both delayed the publication of their most influential work (Copernicus, until after his death; Darwin for decades), presumably to avoid sanction and punishment.

Socrates is now revered by many across the world, and heliocentrism and Darwinian evolution are widely accepted. Scholarship suppression today rarely takes the form of legal governmen<sup>t</sup> censorship, at least in Western democracies. Although one might justifiably claim that there are very few topics that can currently be considered silenced within academia, there are indeed some. Some scholars have been so severely punished and stigmatized for reaching conclusions regarding certain topics that we will not even mention those topics in this article because we fear the social sanctions that we might be

subjected to, such as inciting mobs that could ge<sup>t</sup> us fired. This is not a rhetorical flourish, it is a real, bona fide risk because such mobs have successfully gotten other academics fired (see [1], for a list of academics sanctioned by other academics for expressing ideas).

We start, therefore, by putting aside those taboo topics. In this paper, we first discuss freedom of expression and its relationship to academic freedom (or free inquiry). This discussion explores the differences between the legal protections provided for freedom of expression, and the moral reasons for maintaining robust protections for academic freedom. Next, we discuss the mechanisms that help suppress controversial scholarship, the social and psychological factors that motivate and sustain their deployment, and how over time they can inculcate a culture of self-censorship. Finally, we review emerging trends in scholarship suppression.

#### **2. Sources of Scholarship Suppression in Academia**

#### *2.1. Three Forms of Suppression*

Scholarship suppression occurs in three different ways. External scholarship suppression occurs when the attempt comes from forces outside the academy (interest groups, the government, religious groups, etc.). Internal scholarship suppression occurs when the attempt comes from elements within the academy, either from students, other scholars, or from college administrators. Finally, a hybrid form of scholarship suppression occurs when external sources of scholarship suppression motivate internal forces within the academy to actively suppress scholarship.

#### *2.2. Internal Suppression Is the Most Severe Form*

Although we will touch on all three forms of scholarship suppression, this paper is primarily focused on how internal academic forces can foster the development of a culture of censorship among scholars, hindering the investigation of certain topics that are widely considered controversial or taboo. We consider internal suppression the most dangerous, most toxic form of research suppression in the U.S. and democratic west for two reasons (which is the focus of the present paper; governmen<sup>t</sup> censorship in authoritarian regimes would require an entirely separate paper). First, in the case of hybrid instances, although outsiders might instigate a suppression process, the power (e.g., to fire, punish, and retract an article) always rests with insiders; the key actors and decision-makers are the insiders, not the outsiders.

Second, and even more important, there are reasons to believe that internal scholarship suppression is far more powerful than external or hybrid scholarship suppression. The key idea here is that academic success hinges on the views of other academics, whereas external efforts to suppress are unusual events and can thus be considered outliers. Although there are cases in which rightwing media have instigated outrage mobs that have led to sanctions of faculty [2], such instances are usually for things like incendiary tweets (in the referenced case here, "All I want for Christmas is white genocide"), rather than the conventional expression of academic ideas in books, colloquia, and peer reviewed publications. In the course of normal academic events, faculty rewards and punishments for scholarship in the U.S., for example, literally hinge to no extent whatsoever on the opinions of Fox News viewers.

Although academia should continue to remain on-guard for external sources of scholarship suppression, internal sources of scholarship suppression are very real, more effective, and deserve more attention so that they can be better guarded against. We note here that all of the authors are American citizens and we are most familiar with the issues of free expression and academic freedom in the United States. So, except where otherwise noted, our subsequent comments are largely restricted to issues of free expression and academic freedom within the United States.

#### **3. Freedom of Expression and Academic Freedom**

We define free expression as the refusal to allow individual expression or thought to be controlled, without consent, by an external authority (see also [3]). We consider the concept of freedom of expression as a superordinate category that includes the domains of religion, speech, association, and inquiry. Each of these freedoms protects the individual from punishment for speech or being compelled to express themselves in a particular way. For example, freedom of religion allows individuals to freely choose the religion they practice and how often they observe religious customs. Individuals can also choose not to practice any religion without fear of punishment.

#### *3.1. Freedom of Expression and the Law*

In Western democracies today it is fairly easy to take freedom of expression for granted. However, it took centuries for a right to freedom of expression to be widely recognized and written into law. The first formal legal protections emerged with the passage of the Bill of Rights in England in 1689, the adoption of the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen during the early days of the French Revolution in 1789, and the passage of the First Amendment to the United States Constitution in 1791. The latter currently provides robust legal protection for the freedom of expression, restricting the U.S. government's ability to regulate speech, religious practice, the press, people's ability to assemble, and people's ability to petition the governmen<sup>t</sup> for a redress of grievances. Court rulings have further clarified that the speech protected by the First Amendment also encompasses non-verbal forms of expression such as artwork [4] or even behavior such as defacing an American flag [5] or burning one [6].

Although the First Amendment protects citizens from restrictions on expression imposed by the government, it does not o ffer protection from private actors (e.g., other individuals, a community, a corporation, or private organization). There are at least two implications of this. First, it means that public colleges and universities are required to abide by the First Amendment. Private colleges and universities are not, ye<sup>t</sup> many have policies or bylaws that e ffectively require them to do so [7]. Second, other private actors are protected from the governmen<sup>t</sup> restricting their ability to express opposition to another's protected speech, provided they do this peacefully.

For instance, the First Amendment protects a group of Black Lives Matter activists on the campus of a state university who silently protest an academic panel on the limits and downsides of identity politics by holding up signs during the discussion or turning their backs on the speakers. However, if any members of the group loudly shouted down the speakers so that they could not continue their discussion, the university would be expected to intervene so the discussion could continue. This latter form of protest behavior is referred to as the heckler's veto, and courts in the U.S. consistently rule that such behavior is a violation of the First Amendment rights of the shouted down speaker or speakers [8].

#### *3.2. Freedom of Inquiry and Belief, and Their Limitations*

Legal protections of speech, whether in the U.S., U.K., or elsewhere, generally do not explicitly mention freedom of inquiry. However, since the mid-20th century university faculty in many countries have possessed some degree of academic freedom, a protection that grants scholars the freedom to research, teach, or communicate facts or ideas without fear of suppression or censure, job loss, or imprisonment. A formal definition of academic freedom was adopted by the American Association of University Professors (AAUP) in the 1940 Statement of Principles on Academic Freedom [9]. This statement contends that academic freedom is essential to the common good and the search for truth, and delineates what represents acceptable academic practice in the public square, in one's research, and in the classroom.

Even though American courts have recognized a relationship between academic freedom and the First Amendment, the two are distinct legal concepts [10]. The First Amendment applies to all citizens and a ffords them protection from governmen<sup>t</sup> restrictions on their expression. The concept of academic freedom is more narrowly focused on protecting the ability of faculty and students within academia to engage in the free and open inquiry of their individual scholarly interests and pursuits, with little to no restriction. Faculty are also granted considerable latitude in how they teach, provided they demonstrate professional competence and avoid introducing controversial material that is not related to the course.

A few examples can help us demonstrate when academic freedom protects a scholar and when it does not. First, consider a hypothetical case of an individual who sends out a series of tweets extolling the flat Earth theory and urges people to join them as a member of the Flat Earth Society. This individual also happens to be a professor of French literature at a state university; however there is no mention of this a ffiliation or even of being a professor in the individual's profile. The series of tweets goes viral and someone identifies the individual as a professor of French literature. A campaign is organized with the goal of getting the professor fired from the university for their belief in the flat Earth theory and membership in the Flat Earth Society. The professor, however, has never discussed the flat Earth theory in the classroom. In this situation the university can treat this professor as someone who holds a very curious belief and who associates with some very curious people. However, it would probably be di fficult for the college or university to sanction the professor for beliefs they expressed as a private citizen,becausetheprofessorneverclaimedtheywerespeakingonbehalfofthecollegeoruniversity.

However, if this professor decided to devote classroom time in a French literature course to a discussion of the flat Earth theory, the university could implement sanctions. Advocating the flat Earth theory is entirely irrelevant to teaching French literature. Therefore the professor could be sanctioned for failing to meet standards of professional competence.

Now, consider if a discussion of Flat Earth theory occurred in the professor's French literature course because it was mentioned in an assigned reading and a student who is unfamiliar with the theory has asked what it contends and if there is any basis for it. In this scenario, because the discussion was prompted by a student question, it is unlikely that the university could sanction the professor for a lack of professional competence. Even though the professor is someone who holds a very curious belief and associates with some very curious people, their decision to answer a student's question about Flat Earth Theory would likely be protected by their academic freedom.

Finally, consider a professor of geology at the same state university. Just like the French literature professor, this geology professor believes in the flat Earth theory and is a member of the Flat Earth Society, and a campaign is organized with the goal of getting the professor fired from the university. However, compared to the French literature professor this is a much di fferent situation. Unless the geologist can provide evidence demonstrating the possibility that the Earth is flat that is also accepted by some other credible geologists (credibility being established, for example, by peer reviewed publications), the university may be able to sanction them for failing to meet standards of professional competence. This is because flat Earth theory has been resoundingly rejected by the professor's field of (purported) expertise. If this professor went even further and actually devoted classroom time to lecturing students about the veracity of the flat Earth theory then academic freedom would not offer them any protection and the university may be able to fire them for failing to meet standards of professional competence.

Thus, faculty are permitted to hold all sorts of strange beliefs without sanction as long as: 1. they are irrelevant to their professional expertise and not brought into the classroom gratuitously or 2. they can actually justify strange or unorthodox beliefs in their area of expertise by conventional standards used in the faculty member's field of expertise. On the other hand, if they bring claims that are both irrelevant and unorthodox into their teaching, they are subject to sanctioning; and if they make completely unorthodox beliefs that cannot be justified by conventional methods in their field, they can be sanctioned.

#### *3.3. Much of Modern Scholarship Suppression in the Academy Does not Involve Legal Issues*

The perspective articulated here argues that threats to free inquiry in the academy rarely involve free speech as a legal issue. This issue is important, because we suspect that many people think of "free speech" in narrow, legalistic terms. If the governmen<sup>t</sup> is not restricting speech, then people sometimes seem to believe there is no "free speech" issue at stake. There may be no legal issue at stake, but speech can still be threatened, ideas suppressed, and inquiry restricted. We argue herein that there are often free speech and academic freedom issues at stake, even in the absence of legal issues. Historically, for example, during the McCarthy era, many academics were fired by private universities after being questioned by the governmen<sup>t</sup> panels inquiring into their associations with communists [11]. This did not violate the U.S. constitutional protections against governmen<sup>t</sup> prohibitions against speech or association. Nonetheless, it clearly functioned to suppress certain ideas. Thus, a major theme throughout this paper is that threats to free speech and academic freedom can and do occur entirely legally. They occur through social, informal, organizational, and normative processes; as such, these processes can operate entirely without infringing on protections against governmen<sup>t</sup> interference in speech.

#### *3.4. Freedom of Speech as a Moral Principle*

Some have argued that there really is no such thing as free speech or freedom of expression (see [12]), a contention that is more convincing than it seems at first. Freedom of expression is a value, and contentious issues about it are far more likely to arise in communities or societies where it is highly valued. Yet all societies, even the ones that consider freedom of expression one of their most important values, place some legal limits on expression. Thus, debates about free expression are about identifying the boundaries of acceptable free expression in a community or society (e.g., [13–15]), not whether a given person or group can literally express themselves. To be clear, by expression we mean the verbal (e.g., speech), written (e.g., opinion piece), artistic (e.g., political cartoon), or behavioral (e.g., flag burning) expression of a thought or viewpoint.

In *On Liberty*, Mill [16] asks to what extent society can exercise power over an individual, and he makes a very strong defense of freedom of expression with few limits. Mill contends that the expression of any idea, no matter how immoral, should be allowed unless it immediately and directly harms someone. Mill does not explicitly define harm. However, he does attempt to delineate where the boundary of acceptable expression lies by contrasting a written opinion accusing corn dealers of starving the poor with someone stating such an opinion directly to an angry mob right outside a corn dealer's house. According to Mill the written opinion, although o ffensive, should not be restricted, but the incitement of an angry mob that could immediately become violent with a corn dealer should be.

This distinction—between an o ffensive opinion that is unlikely to immediately cause direct harm to someone and an o ffensive opinion that could immediately incite physical violence—is important because it demonstrates that Mill did not consider o ffensiveness on its own as harmful. This view may be rooted in Mill's concerns about the subjectivity of people's opinions and the tendency for many to imbue those opinions with a sense of infallibility ([16] p. 17, emphasis in the original):

*"We can never be sure that the opinion we are endeavoring to stifle is a false opinion; and if we were sure, stifling it would be an evil still. First: the opinion which it is attempted to suppress by authority may possibly be true. Those who desire to suppress it, of course deny its truth; but they are not infallible. They have no authority to decide the question for all mankind, and exclude every other person from the means of judging. To refuse hearing an opinion, because they are sure it is false, is to assume that their certainty is the same thing as absolute certainty. All silencing of discussion is an assumption of infallibility".*

In other words, Mill does not consider o ffensiveness an adequate basis for restricting expression, and we should not treat any single person's opinion or viewpoint as certain or infallible.

Feinberg [17] disagreed with Mill and argued that the o ffensiveness of an expressive action should be considered when considering restrictions on free expression. This expands the pool of expressive actions that can be restricted to those that can cause an unpleasant psychological state such as anger or disgust. Indeed, human communities and societies regulate all kinds of non-harmful, but o ffensive behavior even though they restrict individual liberty. For instance, most societies have legal prohibitions against two consenting adults engaging in sexual intercourse in public. This expressive action does not cause any harm, in the way Mill would define it, but it is an action that clearly possesses the potential to cause a strong negative reaction among people who happen to witness the event, and the couple would likely face legal and social sanctions as a result of their action.

Although we recognize that human communities and societies restrict all kinds of non-harmful, offensive behavior because they transgress certain moral sensibilities, we return to Mill's argumen<sup>t</sup> that no person's opinion or viewpoint should be treated as infallible. Indeed, human history is replete with examples of despots, dictators, and dogmatic regimes that suppressed dissent and persecuted "heretics" for their beliefs [18]. Investigations of sociopolitical tolerance are also not encouraging—people often espouse strong support for general tolerance and freedom of expression in the abstract, but this support drops, sometimes precipitously, when people are asked about individuals or viewpoints that they strongly oppose (see e.g., [19–24]). For example, Erskine [19] reviewed public opinion data on attitudes toward freedom of speech collected between 1936 and 1970. Table 1 below is reproduced from that analysis and demonstrated that a notable portion of American citizens endorsed non-specific limitations on freedom of speech and that the majority opposed freedom of speech for extremists.

**Table 1.** Support for freedom of speech 1938–1970, from Erskine (1970).


The dramatic drop-off from theoretical support for freedom of speech (a statement such as, "The minority should be free to criticize majority decisions"—[22]) to concrete support (e.g., for "extremist" groups as shown) was found consistently over several decades. When people are asked if they would tolerate certain kinds of expression, who or what is being granted tolerance matters a grea<sup>t</sup> deal (see [20,21,23,24]). By whom we mean the individual or group of individuals responsible for an expressive action. By what we mean the specific thought or viewpoint itself (e.g., support for communism), independent of who is expressing it.

Importantly, people are likely to oppose freedom of expression if they dislike the target, consider the expressive content a normative violation, and believe that the target's group is growing in strength and influence, constituting an existing threat (see [25]). For instance, support for allowing communists to freely express their ideas among American citizens has fluctuated quite a bit over time (see [15,18,19,23,24]). In 1954, only 27% of Americans said they would allow an admitted communist to make a speech in their community and an even smaller percentage (5%) said he should be allowed to keep his job teaching at the local college [26]. In 2018, 67% of Americans said a communist should be allowed to speak in their community and 61% said he should be allowed to keep his job at the local college [27]. This change in attitudes toward communists can be explained by recognizing that 1954 was the height of McCarthyism and the second Red Scare. With the emergence of the Soviet Union as a rival global superpower to the United States, communism was considered a global threat to democracy that was also growing in strength and influence [26]. With the fall of the Soviet Union in the 1990s the threat of communism has waned, and today the majority of Americans do not appear to consider communism a threat.

History, law, and philosophy converge on raising the following rhetorical question: who is so infallible that they ge<sup>t</sup> to decide who or what requires restriction, outright censorship, or worse? We consider the principle that few claims are so settled as to justify censorship one of the foundational pillars of science. If some claim is definitively true (e.g., the Earth is round), then claims that the Earth is flat can be readily admitted into discourse; they will simply be easily debunked. In the social sciences, however, few claims are as certain as "the Earth is round". Our capability to fully understand the world is limited and our understanding of the world is constantly evolving. The history of science is littered with beliefs once held as all but "certain" that were subsequently rejected, such as a young Earth, a geocentric universe, leeches helped release "bad blood" or stress causes ulcers. Therefore, we contend that scholars need to be able to engage in unfettered freedom of inquiry.

#### *3.5. Suppression Versus Rejection*

In scholarship and science there is a difference between suppression and rejection. Suppression occurs when the fear of social sanctions prevents ideas from being explored or empirical findings from being presented in scientific or public forums. In science, rejection occurs when an idea has been explored and the evidence has been found wanting. The history of science is replete with rejected ideas, such as a geocentric solar system, young Earth, spontaneous generation of life, and the phlogiston theory of air. These ideas were thoroughly explored and rejected because the evidence available overwhelmingly disconfirmed them.

In contrast, suppression prevents an idea even from being explored. Historically, this has occurred for a wide variety of reasons, including that the idea constitutes religious heresy [18], political anathema [28], or premature canonization of the wrong idea [29]. Premature canonization refers to widespread scientific belief in a false conclusion, which leads to suppression masquerading as rejection. A classic relatively recent case of premature canonization involves the scientific identification of causes of ulcers. In the 1950s and 1960s the medical establishment had converged on the conclusion that stress caused ulcers, and a huge, lucrative pharmaceutical industry was built around treating ulcers by treating stress. When Barry Marshall came along in the 1980s producing study after study showing that bacteria, not stress, caused ulcers, he was generally dismissed as a crank and had di fficulty getting the work published or treated seriously at medical conferences (the history is told in [30]). This is suppression, not "rejection" because no one ever actually refuted his research. Although the medical community was eventually persuaded by Marshall's work (indeed, he received a Nobel Prize for it), it took decades because his early work was e ffectively suppressed. Loeb [31] presents several examples in which premature canonization of erroneous claims unnecessarily delayed progress in astronomy. These are generally similar to the ulcers case in that ideas based on little or no evidence somehow became widely accepted, leading to initial suppression rather than refutation on ostensible grounds that what turned out to be the truth (which ran against consensus) was not credible.

To recap, rejection means science has extensively examined some claim or hypothesis and determined it to be false. In contrast, suppression means an idea either cannot be explored, or, if explored and empirically supported, is blocked from communication with the scientific community or public. In principle, unfettered free inquiry includes the possibility of reviving long-rejected ideas. However, scientists who decide to attempt to revive a long-rejected view in some field should be aware of at least two things: 1. they are going to need extraordinary evidence to persuade other scientists and 2. they are likely to receive harsh and intense criticism, and, at least initially, have their work suppressed in the sense described in this paper. This is because, even if they are right, others will likely assume they are quacks and dismiss the claims out of hand, without scrutiny.

#### **4. Academic Outrage Mobs: A Theoretical Perspective on Scholarship Suppression**

#### *4.1. Academia Is a Social Reputational System*

The production of ideas and knowledge in academia generally hinges almost entirely on the subjective evaluations of one's academic colleagues. After briefly justifying the idea that academia is a social reputational system, we focused on how and why this renders academics particularly vulnerable to idea suppression.

All or nearly all academic incentives are fundamentally social, rather than objective:


Since social evaluations are so central to success in academia, it is easy to induce fear of social sanctions for expressing the ideas that, though not necessarily shown to be factually or scientifically wrong, are widely unpopular or disapproved.

Suppression can occur in a variety of ways and for a wide variety of reasons, not all political. Eminent and prestigious scholars are often gatekeepers (editors, society o fficers, etc.) and can have outsized influence on which ideas are cultivated, ignored, or outright blocked. For example, one of the sources of psychology's Replication Crisis is that failures to replicate famous scientists' work often ran into di fficulty getting published [32]. This occurred because replication attempts often targeted famous and influential articles and findings for good reasons. There may be few more important replications than those verifying the validity of the claims made based on original studies widely viewed as groundbreaking. Typically, however, the replication attempt would be sent to the original authors for review, because the original authors would be viewed as highly expert in the research area and specific methods having already published on that topic using those same methods.

However true that may be, this process also creates a built-in conflict of interest: If a scholar's success and prestige hinged in part on the accolades and respect from colleagues that accrued as a result of the original paper and findings, and if they are sent a paper that failed to replicate their original findings, they have ample incentives to suppress the failed replication, e.g., by producing a scathing review to the editor rejecting the paper. Of course the criticisms will be framed in purely "scientific" terms—methodology, statistics, logical inference, etc.—rather than personal terms. Regardless, few editors indeed are likely to be willing to accept a paper over the adamant rejections and intense criticisms of famous, eminent experts. Doing so might put their own careers at risk.

This dynamic probably helps explain why some findings and claims in psychology have more appearance than reality of scientific credibility. The appearance is created by the "scientific" literature, which, because of suppression of failed replications, is populated disproportionately by papers confirming the e ffect. In short, if the famous and eminent block publication of findings contesting that upon which they built their fame and eminence, it may never see the light of day, at least not until they are long gone.

Of course, this dynamic is likely far broader than merely failed replications. Any time research produces either findings or conclusions that some large interest group in that field opposes, a similar dynamic can function to suppress those findings. The same dynamic can play out with respect to grants, which greatly facilitate the conduct of research on various topics (and in some cases are an absolute necessity). However, they are also highly competitive, with governmen<sup>t</sup> funding rates in the social sciences in the U.S. often around 20% [33]. This means that one needs to usually receive favorable ratings from almost every reviewer to ge<sup>t</sup> funded. If the ability to do so is rendered more di fficult because even a substantial minority of one's colleagues object to the type of work being proposed, that work is unlikely to ge<sup>t</sup> funded or conducted. The work is e ffectively suppressed. Due to the social reputational nature of academia, the ideas of academics are especially vulnerable to suppression through social ostracism and punishments.

#### *4.2. Freedom of Expression Versus Freedom of Inquiry*

Although many people seem to assume that freedom of inquiry and academic freedom are subsets of, and largely subsumed by, the legal protections for freedom of speech, the two are distinct legal concepts [34]. Furthermore, free expression, whether protected on the grounds of the First Amendment or supported because of belief in free expression as a moral principle (see above), can infringe on someone else's academic freedom and their ability to engage in free inquiry. The prototypical case is denunciation: In the U.S., the governmen<sup>t</sup> (because of free speech guarantees) cannot prevent someone from denouncing others as evil and calling for them to be sanctioned. Such denunciations can suppress not only the speech of those denounced, but others who agree with the denounced. Thus, free inquiry is not a subset of freedom of expression, and one cannot assume that, if free speech is protected, ipso facto, free inquiry is protected. The two can and do come into conflict.

The basic recipe for this conflict in academic, or other contexts, is simple. First, someone schedules an event (e.g., a conference; an invited talk), publishes an article (peer-reviewed or op-ed), or states something that another person, or group of people, considers offensive or harmful. Then the aggrieved person or group of people organizes in some way (e.g., by petitions, letter, social media, email campaigns, etc.) to exert public pressure on authorities (e.g., journal editors, colleagues, university presidents, or provosts) that can sanction or punish the offender. Frequently enough, these organized campaigns manifest as petitions making some call to action (e.g., cancellation of an event; calls for termination; disinvitation of an invited speaker; and retraction of a published peer-reviewed article) that are then often signed by hundreds, sometimes even thousands of academics. Such groups may only be loosely organized and often feed off of one another's outrage, denunciations, and moral grandstanding on social media platforms, such as Facebook or Twitter [35]. On rare occasions an outrage mob may resort to more drastic tactics such as shouting down a speaker at an event, verbally threatening the offender, or getting physically aggressive with them (see [36] for a summary of such events).

For simplicity, in this paper, we refer to all such activities as those of "outrage mobs," and we define an outrage mob as:

"A group or crowd of people whose goal is to sanction or punish the individual, individuals, or organization they consider responsible for something that o ffends, insults, or a ffronts their beliefs, values, or feelings. This group or crowd demonstrates a flagrant disinterest in any further explanation from the target or targets and attempts to carry out punishment often by enlisting authorities with the power to level sanctions on the target or targets".

It is important for us to make some additional distinctions about outrage mobs and their relationship to scholarship suppression. An external outrage mob is made up of individuals outside of the academy who are not engaged in formal scholarship that targets a scholar (i.e., academic) or group of scholars (i.e., academics) for scholarship suppression. An external outrage mob cannot level sanctions or punishments on the o ffending person or group of people; however, we suspect that one of the goals of most, if not all, external outrage mobs is to convince those who do have such authority to sanction or punish the o ffending scholar. An internal (or academic) outrage mob functions in an almost identical way to an external outrage mob, except that it is made up solely of scholars who are targeting another scholar or a group of scholars for scholarship suppression. Finally, sometimes an external outrage mob succeeds in persuading some academics to lend support to their campaign. We refer to these instances, when they occur, as a hybrid outrage mob. Thus, free speech can come into conflict with free expression and academic freedom because people can make use of their own freedom of expression to organize outrage mobs, create petitions of denunciation, and the like, to suppress other people's free expression.

#### *4.3. Witch Hunts and the Politics of Heresy*

Our concept of an outrage mob draws heavily on the sociological scholarship on political witch hunts [13,14], the politics of heresy [15], and moral panics [13,14]. This scholarship explores the

identification of deviance, or heresy, and how this identification helps a community define the boundaries on what beliefs they consider acceptable and true. Bergesen [37] synthesized elements from the sociology of religion (e.g., [38,39]) and the sociology of deviance (e.g., [37]) to sugges<sup>t</sup> that witch hunts represent a way for a community to establish where its moral boundaries are and to reaffirm what that community holds sacred. To do this, witch hunts manufacture deviance within a community by transforming a trivial activity (e.g., publishing a peer-reviewed article on gender differences in career preferences) into an action that is imbued with larger historical forces (e.g., reinforcing the oppressive patriarchy). This process can involve different levels of community mobilization, from simple verbal accusations and charges to the empowerment of members of the community as righteous agents on guard for evidence of subversion and deviance [13]. Suspected deviants are then accused, subjected to some sort of "trial" in which the outcome is fore-ordained and typically made to confess their "crime" or "crimes" (see [13,15]; see also [18]).

In a similar vein, Kurtz [15] argued that heresy plays an essential role in allowing people to clearly and systematically articulate what is considered acceptable and possibly (or even likely) true in a belief system, and what is considered unacceptable and therefore false and dangerous. Heretics are deviant members of the community, and the social construction of a heresy typically occurs during a status conflict within a community. Through the identification of heresy and the pursuit of heretics, a community defines or reaffirms its moral boundaries about what is permitted and what is not. This process can also give members of the community the ability to enhance their social status while also maintaining and reinforcing the community's existing power structure ([15]; see also [14]).

#### *4.4. Moral Panics and the Construction of Deviance*

Our concept of an outrage mob also draws from the sociological literature on moral panics (see e.g., [25,40]), which itself has some similarities to the scholarship on witch hunts. Goode and Ben-Yehuda ([25], p. 29) described the concept of moral panics as "likely to clarify [the] 'normative contours' and 'moral boundaries' of the society in which they take place". A key component of a moral panic is the creation of a folk devil or suitable enemy who is considered responsible for some threatening or damaging behavior or condition (see [40]). Cohen [40] argued that a folk devil has been stripped of any favorable characteristics and that the negative characteristics that remain often develop into exaggerated unfavorable stereotypes. In other words, a folk devil is a member of the community who has been identified as a deviant and a threat by a notable portion of a community or society.

The criteria for considering an event a moral panic are quite clear (for a thorough review of all the criteria, see [25], pp. 37–46). Fairly suddenly, some portion of a community or society agrees that some behavior of a certain group or category is concerning, problematic, and even harmful to others. This consensus among members of the community, that some other portion of the community is deviant, permits them to treat the deviants, or folk devils, in their midst with hostility and punish them. Yet, the concern about the threat posed by the deviant members of the community is always more substantial than a realistic appraisal of the situation would conclude. Thus, we are not arguing that every instance of a scholar, or idea, being targeted for suppression by an outrage mob qualifies as an example of a moral panic. Instead, what we are arguing is that outrage mobs that target scholars for their scholarship often demonstrate one or more of the elements of a moral panic.

For instance, consider the case of Selina Todd, a Professor of History at Oxford University's St. Hilda's College, and a feminist. In 2019, Todd was invited to speak at the Oxford International Women's Festival held at Exeter College. She was the target of protests by transgender activist groups and several speakers withdrew in protest. The organizers then deplatformed her. Later, in 2020, she was invited to give a keynote address at the University of Kent, which sparked another outrage mob, this time, primarily academics, denouncing her. The large number of signatories on the letter represents some level of consensus about Todd's views among members of that portion of the academic community. The talk was eventually postponed due to the coronavirus outbreak, and it remains to be

seen whether she will be allowed to give it [41]. Along the way, she was the target of threats of physical violence su fficiently credible and severe that her college provided her with security guards [42].

The signatories of the denunciation letter directly referenced one page on Todd's website (https://selinatodd.com/my-feminism) where Todd stated that she is opposed to amending the law in the United Kingdom so that people would "be able to define themselves as men or as women simply by describing themselves as such". Todd gave 3 reasons for her views:


Todd concluded by noting her membership in and support for Woman's Place UK (WPUK), a woman's rights group concerned about how the push to replace biological sex with gender identity may obfuscate current levels of sexism against women in a variety of domains.

The denunciation letter contends that Todd's views, and those of WPUK, about biological sex are tantamount to questioning the right of transgender women to self-identify. We are not adjudicating between these two di fferent positions in the present paper, though we believe research into the veracity of both positions is a more appropriate way to resolve such a matter compared to a letter of denunciation. We do, however, think the case of Selina Todd helps demonstrate how academic outrage mobs sometimes share some similarity with moral panics.

It is clear that there was concern about Todd because of her views—they were described as not only "problematic" and "unpopular", but "harmful". These sorts of criticisms do not address whether she was actually factually or empirically wrong in any of her claims; and the terms "unpopular" and "harmful" are actually empirical statements that, at least hypothetically, could be tested, could be found to be either correct or incorrect, and do not need to be assumed. In the absence of such evidence, we do not know that the criticisms were actually wrong; instead, they can be described as evidencing a flagrant disregard for facts or evidence bearing on her statements. Furthermore, and perhaps even more important, "harm" is tantamount to calling her ideas "dangerous", and dangerous ideas are explicitly protected under the principle of academic freedom.

It was further argued that giving her a platform would force trans and nonbinary members of the university community in the position of having to defend their right to exist. This was presented as justification for the denunciation. It is manifestly false because trans and nonbinary members could simply have ignored anything Todd presented.

The final, and most important, criterion for declaring something a moral panic is disproportionality. To meet this criterion, the threat or the danger posed by the scholarship must be exaggerated beyond what a realistic appraisal could sustain. In the specific case of Selina Todd, a perusal of her deplatformed but planned remarks for the Oxford International Women's Festival [43] demonstrates they were rather brief. She intended to speak fondly of how her parents met at Ruskin College and how because of the Women's Liberation Movement, and that first inaugural conference at Ruskin College 50 years ago, she grew up in a much di fferent world than her mother did. She concluded by arguing that, despite the victories won by feminism over the past 50 years, there is still much work to be done for women's rights. We leave it to readers to decide for themselves if the deplatforming of Selina Todd was a proportional or disproportional response.

#### *4.5. Scholarship Suppression vs. Other Reasons for Punishment*

There are of course bona fide reasons to punish academics, such as criminal behavior, incompetence, harassment of students or colleagues, and scientific fraud and misconduct. Since such reasons are for unethical or criminal behavior, rather than promotion or publishing of scholarship, they are beyond the scope of the present paper.

A grey area involves ideas expressed through means other than scholarship. A rising influence on firings or pressures to resign comes from targets' social media presence, in places such as Twitter or Facebook. Faculty are routinely targeted by outrage mobs for o ffensive tweets or posts on other platforms (see "white genocide" discussed previously). Another was fired for a slew of racist comments, including referring to President Obama as a "monkey" [44].

In this paper, therefore, we put aside these grey areas, because even though conventional academic ideas may play some role in them, they are also some witches' brew of snark, hatred, sarcasm, insult, and racism. Our focus was on suppression of ideas as expressed in scholarship. By scholarship, we included peer reviewed articles, books, book chapters, and blogs. We also included teaching, talks, colloquia, panel presentations, essays, editorials, and op-ed pieces that focus mainly on presenting the scholarship, and its implications, for a lay audience. We excluded social media posts (Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram) and message boards.

Furthermore, if one goes back far enough in history, one can find ample evidence of academics being punished, including being fired, for their leftwing views, a phenomenon that probably reached its zenith during McCarthyism [45]. However, our review focused on the current state of academia and was not meant to provide a broadly historical review. Therefore, we focused exclusively on punishment occurring in the last five years.

#### **5. Emerging Trends in Scholarship Suppression**

There are two main types of scholarship suppression: suppression by others and self-suppression. The most direct route to scholarship suppression in academia is to attempt to punish people for their ideas (suppression by others). The most obvious manifestations of the modern toolbox of idea punishment include: firing, loss of position (e.g., a dean is removed though may remain on the faculty), deplatforming, and retraction of published papers for anything other than fraud, misconduct, or flagrant and frequent data errors. If successful, the ideas being promulgated will be suppressed. A retracted paper is no longer in the literature; a deplatformed speaker has lost a platform, and a fired scholar may never return to academia or publishing.

However, even if punishment is "unsuccessful" in the sense that none of those actually occur (the target is not fired, deplatformed, and their paper is not retracted), it may nonetheless be highly effective at suppressing ideas for several reasons:

