Saudi Press

Saudi Arabia and the world
Saturday, Aug 30, 2025

Stanford professor who challenged lockdowns and 'scientific clerisy' declares academic freedom 'dead'

Stanford professor who challenged lockdowns and 'scientific clerisy' declares academic freedom 'dead'

Stanford University professor of medicine Dr. Jay Bhattacharya declared academic freedom "dead" after he objected to COVID lockdown policies during the pandemic and was deplatformed.
A Stanford University professor of medicine says "academic freedom is dead" after his life became a "living hell" for challenging coronavirus lockdown orders and the "scientific clerisy" during the pandemic.

"The basic premise is that if you don't have protection and academic freedom in the hard cases, when a faculty member has an idea that's unpopular among some of the other faculty – powerful faculty, or even the administration … If they don't protect it in that case, then you don't have academic freedom at all," Dr. Jay Bhattacharya told Fox News Digital in a phone interview. 

Bhattacharya is a tenured professor of medicine at Stanford University and also an economist who serves as director of Stanford’s Center for Demography and Economics of Health and Aging. 

He came under fire during the pandemic after co-authoring the Great Barrington Declaration, which was an open letter signed by thousands of doctors and scientists in 2020 denouncing lockdowns as harmful. Bhattacharya was joined by Harvard professor of medicine Dr. Martin Kulldorff and Oxford professor Dr. Sunetra Gupta in co-authoring the document. 

The declaration was quickly denounced by other health leaders, including National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases director Dr. Anthony Fauci, who slammed the call for herd immunity in the document as "nonsense and very dangerous."

Bhattacharya spoke at the Academic Freedom Conference at Stanford's Graduate School of Business earlier this month and said that in the current era, "we have a high clerisy that declares from on high what is true and what is not true."

"When you take a position that is at odds with the scientific clerisy, your life becomes a living hell," he said at the conference. "You face a deeply hostile work environment."

Bhattacharya said that soon after the Great Barrington Declaration gained widespread attention, he received death threats, hate mail and questions on where he receives funding, which he noted, "most of my money has come from the NIH for most of my life."

"The purpose of the one-page document was aimed at telling the public that there was not a scientific consensus in favor of lockdown, that in fact many epidemiologists, many doctors, many other people – prominent people – disagreed with the consensus," Bhattacharya said during his 10-minute talk at the conference. 

And on campus, "a chill" on debate set in and he was disinvited from delivering a campus talk and an effort to organize a debate on COVID policies stalled, the College Fix reported of his remarks at the conference. 

"If Stanford really truly were committed to academic freedom, they would have… worked to make sure that there were debates and discussions, seminars, where these ideas were discussed among faculty," regardless of whether academics agreed or disagreed, he told Fox News Digital following his address at the conference. 

Bhattacharya argued in his comments to Fox News that in many scientific circles during the pandemic, "power replaced the idea of truth as the guiding light."

"So you have somebody like Tony Fauci who says unironically, that if you question me, you're not simply questioning a man, you're questioning science itself. That is an exercise of raw power, where he places himself effectively as the pope of science rather than a genuine desire to learn the truth."

"They systematically tried to make it seem like everyone agreed with their ideas about COVID policy, when in fact there was deep disagreement among scientists and epidemiologists about the right strategy. That's why we wrote the Great Barrington Declaration, to tell the public that there was this disagreement. There was another alternate policy available," he said.  

Bhattacharya charged at the conference that "academic freedom is dead" and that he was left without support from Stanford leaders. 

"The policy of the university, when push comes to shove, is to permit this kind of hostile work environment," he said. "What if there had been open scientific debate on campus, sponsored by the university on this? So that people could know there were legitimate alternate views?"

He argued that if the Stanford president had pushed for a debate when the Great Barrington Declaration was written, "there would have been tremendous controversy around it."

"But at the same time the hostile work environment would have dissipated because what it would have said is, ‘Look, there’s a debate, it’s legitimate to have this debate, a place like Stanford is where this debate ought to happen.'"

Neither Stanford’s media team nor the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases immediately responded to Fox News Digital’s requests for comment on Bhattacharya’s remarks.
Newsletter

Related Articles

Saudi Press
0:00
0:00
Close
After the Shock of Defeat, Iranians Yearn for Change
YouTube Altered Content by Artificial Intelligence – Without Permission
Iran Faces Escalating Water Crisis as Protests Spread
More Than Half a Million Evacuated as Typhoon Kajiki Heads for Vietnam
HSBC Switzerland Ends Relationships with Over 1,000 Clients from Saudi Arabia, Lebanon, Qatar, and Egypt
Sharia Law Made Legally Binding in Austria Despite Warnings Over 'Incompatible' Values
Dogfights in the Skies: Airbus on Track to Overtake Boeing and Claim Aviation Supremacy
Tim Cook Promises an AI Revolution at Apple: "One of the Most Significant Technologies of Our Generation"
Are AI Data Centres the Infrastructure of the Future or the Next Crisis?
Miles Worth Billions: How Airlines Generate Huge Profits
Zelenskyy Returns to White House Flanked by European Allies as Trump Pressures Land-Swap Deal with Putin
Beijing is moving into gold and other assets, diversifying away from the dollar
Cristiano Ronaldo Makes Surprise Stop at New Hong Kong Museum
Zelenskyy to Visit Washington after Trump–Putin Summit Yields No Agreement
High-Stakes Trump-Putin Summit on Ukraine Underway in Alaska
Iranian Protection Offers Chinese Vehicle Shipments a Cost Advantage over Japanese and Korean Makers
Saudi Arabia accelerates renewables to curb domestic oil use
Cristiano Ronaldo and Georgina Rodríguez announce engagement
Asia-Pacific dominates world’s busiest flight routes, with South Korea’s Jeju–Seoul corridor leading global rankings
Private Welsh island with 19th-century fort listed for sale at over £3 million
Sam Altman challenges Elon Musk with plans for Neuralink rival
Australia to Recognize the State of Palestine at UN Assembly
The Collapse of the Programmer Dream: AI Experts Now the Real High-Earners
Armenia and Azerbaijan to Sign US-Brokered Framework Agreement for Nakhchivan Corridor
British Labour Government Utilizes Counter-Terrorism Tools for Social Media Monitoring Against Legitimate Critics
WhatsApp Deletes 6.8 Million Scam Accounts Amid Rising Global Fraud
Nine people have been hospitalized and dozens of salmonella cases have been reported after an outbreak of infections linked to certain brands of pistachios and pistachio-containing products, according to the Public Health Agency of Canada
Texas Residents Face Water Restrictions While AI Data Centers Consume Millions of Gallons
Tariffs, AI, and the Shifting U.S. Macro Landscape: Navigating a New Economic Regime
India Rejects U.S. Tariff Threat, Defends Russian Oil Purchases
United States Establishes Strategic Bitcoin Reserve and Digital Asset Stockpile
Thousands of Private ChatGPT Conversations Accidentally Indexed by Google
China Tightens Mineral Controls, Curtailing Critical Inputs for Western Defence Contractors
OpenAI’s Bold Bet: Teaching AI to Think, Not Just Chat
BP’s Largest Oil and Gas Find in 25 Years Uncovered Offshore Brazil
JPMorgan and Coinbase Unveil Partnership to Let Chase Cardholders Buy Crypto Directly
British Tourist Dies Following Hair Transplant in Turkey, Police Investigate
WhatsApp Users Targeted in New Scam Involving Account Takeovers
Trump Deploys Nuclear Submarines After Threats from Former Russian President Medvedev
Germany’s Economic Breakdown and the Return of Militarization: From Industrial Collapse to a New Offensive Strategy
IMF Upgrades Global Growth Forecast as Weaker Dollar Supports Outlook
Politics is a good business: Barack Obama’s Reported Net Worth Growth, 1990–2025
"Crazy Thing": OpenAI's Sam Altman Warns Of AI Voice Fraud Crisis In Banking
Japanese Prime Minister Vows to Stay After Coalition Loses Upper House Majority
President Trump Diagnosed with Chronic Venous Insufficiency After Leg Swelling
Man Dies After Being Pulled Into MRI Machine Due to Metal Chain in New York Clinic
FIFA Pressured to Rethink World Cup Calendar Due to Climate Change
"Can You Hit Moscow?" Trump Asked Zelensky To Make Putin "Feel The Pain"
Nvidia Becomes World’s First Four‑Trillion‑Dollar Company Amid AI Boom
Iranian President Reportedly Injured During Israeli Strike on Secret Facility
×