Reading this story about how a simple guest lecture almost led to this Texas professor's firing was unsettling, to say the least. Although I don't know Dr. Joy Alonzo's work, it appears that she's a respected expert on the opioid crisis in the US. The content of her lecture, at least from the PowerPoint slides available, suggest she had a matter-of-fact presentation of the opioid crisis, as well as policies that could mitigate or exacerbate the problem. She just happens to work in Texas, which has arguably managed to make that particular situation worse. Any expert who understands the impact of public policy is inevitably going to end up saying something when state or national policies are doing more harm than good. Politicians may not like that fact, nor may partisans of any stripe, but that is how professionals work. Her reward for offering her expertise to a class at another university was to end up on paid leave and investigated - and nearly fired. Why? Some of the content of the lecture might have offended the Lt. Governor of Texas. She managed to dodge a bullet, as no evidence of wrong-doing could be found, but I can only imagine that she regrets the day she joined the Texas A&M faculty.
Let me step back for just a moment. I am in the behavioral and social sciences. When I started my first position at Oklahoma Panhandle State University, I quickly became friends with a then-junior faculty member in my department who was and probably is considerably more conservative than I am. We are still good friends although we each work in completely different locations now. One thing we shared in common was a belief that we both expressed often: social scientists are equal opportunity offenders. If we are doing our job right as educators and researchers, we're going to present evidence that will end up upsetting someone. That's not because we enjoy upsetting our intended audiences, but because facts can be inconvenient, depending on one's worldview. I also believe that since our research output can inform policymakers, we have an obligation to call them out when they are misunderstanding our work, misusing our work, or ignoring our findings at the expense of the greater social good. If these decision-makers are unhappy with our informed opinions, that's their problem. At least that's how it should be. I take the same view with students. Some course content will inevitably challenge beliefs and maybe that leads to some cognitive dissonance, or whatever. I can't just change the facts to please others. My job is to make the evidence available. What students choose to do with that information is up to them, and quite frankly, I have little interest in what they do with that information once the course is finished for the term. As a result, some semesters my course evaluations can look a bit bleak. Imagine a simple introductory course in Psychology that includes materials about research on gender that go against what a subset of students may have learned in Sunday School. I'll get flak for the simple fact that the information is in the textbook, and that I may have tested on that information. So it goes.
In mentioning all of this I do know that I am working during a difficult moment in higher education. The tendency for legislators, primarily in Republican-run states in my country, to micromanage our instruction and research is only intensifying. Texas and Florida are probably the most obvious examples, but any of us in the so-called "red states" are at risk of being cancelled. I expect things to get worse before they get better. I can hope that the tide turns back in favor of rational thought, defended with empirical evidence, and that this era of filtering all data and ideas through tribal grievances will end with minimal collateral damage to careers and to students' ability to function after college. Then again, I am well aware that hope and $1.50 might buy you a candy bar, and little else.
