Faculty Letter in Support of Stephen Kershnar, February 4, 2022

SUNY Fredonia Professor of Philosophy Stephen Kershnar

Note: The below letter was sent to SUNY Fredonia President Stephen Kolison on February 4, 2022, and FIRE invites additional faculty to add their names to the list of signers. Titles are for identification purposes only. Faculty who are interested in joining this letter may email facultyoutreach@thefire.org.

Dear President Kolison,

We understand that some have called for Stephen Kershnar to be fired from his position as professor of philosophy at the State University of New York at Fredonia because of his appearance on a philosophy video podcast where he discussed some of his scholarly work on the ethics of human sexuality, including sexual activity between adults and children. After initially announcing that the matter was “being reviewed,” you have now announced that Professor Kershnar has been barred from campus or from contacting students during a university investigation of “this situation,” that is “the matter involving one of our professors interviewed in a widely shared video podcast.”

Such a suspension from his normal academic duties – let alone any further disciplinary action including his potential termination – is contrary to basic academic freedom principles which SUNY-Fredonia has explicitly recognized as governing its own relationship to the members of its faculty.

It is unquestionably true that Professor Kershnar was discussing extremely sensitive topics during this interview (though his views have been widely misrepresented – he argues, for example, that pedophilia should in fact be illegal), just as he discusses such sensitive topics in applied ethics in his research and teaching. Many scholars and members of the public will no doubt disagree with his arguments and his conclusions, and some might find any discussion of these issues at all to be disturbing.

But academic freedom protects Professor Kershnar in discussing those topics, offering those arguments, and reaching those conclusions, regardless of whether we agree with them or not. Sanctioning Professor Kershnar for the ideas he expressed in an hour-long serious discussion on the respected philosophy podcast “Brain in a Vat” attacks the very heart of the academic enterprise.

Although you have described the video podcast as “widely shared,” in fact the podcast in which Professor Kershnar discussed arguments on ethical issues relating to sexual contact with children has not been widely viewed. What has been widely shared is a brief clip from the podcast. Universities should be places where scholars can safely engage in the task of carefully thinking through the logic and implications of arguments about ethical human behavior, and that is what Professor Kershnar and his interlocutors do in this podcast. Society will be impoverished if such inquiries cannot take place and if ideas about morality are suppressed and censored because they are unpopular or offend the sensibilities of the broader public. If Professor Kershnar’s ideas are wrong, then we all benefit from seeing those errors exposed through intellectual engagement.

The tradition of Western philosophy famously begins with the example of Socrates being silenced and put to death for asking questions and pursuing arguments that his fellow citizens found discomforting. The philosophical enterprise – and indeed the scholarly enterprise broadly – requires the freedom to ask uncomfortable questions and explore unpopular arguments. Universities forsake their central mission if they yield to popular demands that dissident scholars be driven from campus.

Academic freedom will be an empty promise if university officials are not willing to defend a member of the faculty targeted for public outrage for the crime of expressing his thoughts. Firing or otherwise sanctioning Professor Kershnar for his views will send a message to others at SUNY-Fredonia and elsewhere that it is risky for scholars to pursue their profession and share their expertise with the public. Scholars pursuing any research topic that might be controversial will learn that free inquiry and honest discussion should be avoided if they value their careers.

Sincerely,

Keith E. Whittington, William Nelson Cromwell Professor of Politics, Princeton University
Jonathan H. Adler, Johan Verheij Memorial Professor of Law, Case Western Reserve University
Roger L. Albin, MD, Anne B. Young Collegiate Professor of Neurology, University of Michigan
Jason Aleksander, Professor of Philosophy and Associate Dean of Faculty Success and Research, College of Humanities and the Arts, San José State University
Gustaf Arrhenius, Director and Professor of Practical Philosophy, Institute for Futures Studies
Lyell Asher, Professor of English, Lewis and Clark College
Ethan Akin, Professor of Mathematics, The City College of New York
David F. Austin, Associate Professor of Philosophy, North Carolina State University
Jonathan Auyer, Adjunct Faculty, Philosophy Department, State University of New York at Geneseo
J. Michael Bailey, Professor, Department of Psychology, Northwestern University
Jennifer Baker, Professor, Department of Philosophy, College of Charleston
Galen Barry, Assistant Professor of Philosophy, Iona College
Timothy Bays, Associate Professor of Philosophy, University of Notre Dame
Jc Beall, O’Neill Family Chair in Philosophy, University of Notre Dame
Francis J. Beckwith, Professor of Philosophy & Church-State Studies and Associate Director of the Graduate Program in Philosophy, Baylor University
David Benatar, Professor of Philosophy, University of Cape Town
Russell Blackford, Conjoint Senior Lecturer in Philosophy, University of Newcastle, NSW
Josh Blander, Associate Professor of Philosophy, The King's College
Ned Block, Silver Professor, New York University
Paul Bloom, Professor of Psychology, University of Toronto and Brooks and Suzanne Ragen Professor Emeritus of Psychology, Yale University
Peter Boghossian, Founding Faculty, University of Austin
Hilary Bok, Associate Professor, Philosophy, Johns Hopkins University
David Boonin, Professor of Philosophy, University of Colorado Boulder
Peter Bornschein, Part-Time Lecturer, Department of History & Philosophy, Eastern Michigan University
Ben Bradley, Sutton Professor of Philosophy, Syracuse University
Robert Briscoe, Professor of Philosophy, Ohio University
Christopher Devlin Brown, Associate Professor, Philosophy Department, Xiamen University
Alex Byrne, Professor of Philosophy, Department of Linguistics and Philosophy, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Andrei A. Buckareff, Professor of Philosophy and Co-Director of the Cognitive Science Program, Department of Philosophy and Religious Studies, Marist College
Tim Campbell, Research Fellow, Institute for Futures Studies
Peter Carruthers, Distinguished University Professor, Department of Philosophy, University of Maryland
Spencer Case, Lecturer, University of Colorado Boulder
Eric Chwang, Associate Professor of Philosophy, Rutgers University, Camden
Nevin Climenhaga, Senior Research Fellow, Dianoia Institute of Philosophy, Australian Catholic University
John Coetzee, Professorial Research Fellow, University of Adelaide
Andrew Jason Cohen, Professor of Philosophy, Georgia State University
John Collins, Associate Professor of Philosophy, East Carolina University
Kevin Cope, Associate Professor of Law and Public Policy, University of Virginia
John Corvino, Professor of Philosophy and Dean of the Irvin D. Reid Honors College, Wayne State University
David C.K. Curry, Professor of Philosophy, SUNY Potsdam
Brian Cutter, Associate Professor of Philosophy, University of Notre Dame
Eva Dadlez, Professor, University of Central Oklahoma
Partha Dasgupta, Frank Ramsey Professor Emeritus of Economics, Cambridge University
James J. Delaney, Professor of Philosophy and Ostapenko Endowed Director of Professional Ethics, Niagara University
Nicolas Delon, Assistant Professor of Philosophy and Environmental Studies, New College of Florida
Dan Demetriou, Associate Professor of Philosophy, University of Minnesota, Morris
Huzeyfe Demirtas, PhD Candidate & Teaching Associate, Department of Philosophy, Syracuse University
Lara Denis, Professor of Philosophy, Agnes Scott College
Cian Dorr, Professor of Philosophy, New York University
Matti Eklund, Professor of Theoretical Philosophy, Uppsala University
Paul Elbourne, Professor of the Philosophy of Language, University of Oxford
Ted Everett, Professor of Philosophy, Emeritus, State University of New York at Geneseo
Mark Fedyk, Associate Professor of Bioethics, University of California, Davis
Neil Feit, Distinguished Teaching Professor, State University of New York at Fredonia
Graeme Forbes, Professor Emeritus, Department of Philosophy, University of Colorado Boulder
Jennifer Frey, Associate Professor of Philosophy, University of South Carolina
Brett A. Fulkerson-Smith, Professor of Philosophy, Harper College
Molly Gardner, Assistant Professor of Philosophy, University of Florida
Justin Garson, Chair and Professor, Department of Philosophy, Hunter College of the City University of New York
Anthony S. Gillies, Sherwin Scott Professor of Philosophy, University of Arizona
Daniel Greco, Associate Professor of Philosophy, Yale University
Leslie Green, Professor Emeritus of Law, University of Oxford and Queen’s University
Darij Grinberg, Assistant Professor, Department of Mathematics, Drexel University
Shane Gronholz, Lecturer, Department of Philosophy, Gonzaga University
Matthew Hanser, Professor of Philosophy, University of California, Santa Barbara
Chris Heathwood, Associate Professor, University of Colorado Boulder
Raja Halwani, Professor of Philosophy and Faculty Liaison, Liberal Arts Department, School of the Art Institute of Chicago
Nathan Hanna, Associate Professor of Philosophy, Drexel University
Bashshar Haydar, Professor of Philosophy, American University of Beirut
David B. Hershenov, Professor, Department of Philosophy and Director, Romanell Center for Clinical Ethics and the Philosophy of Medicine, University at Buffalo
Carl Hoefer, Director, Barcelona Institute of Analytic Philosophy and ICREA Research Professor, Departament de Filosofia, Universitat de Barcelona
Carole Hooven, Department of Human Evolutionary Biology, Harvard University
Thomas Hurka, Chancellor Henry N.R. Jackman Distinguished Professor of Philosophical Studies, University of Toronto
Jenann Ismael, Professor, Department of Philosophy, Columbia University
Hrishikesh Joshi, Assistant Professor of Philosophy, Bowling Green State University
Justin Kalef, Assistant Teaching Professor, Department of Philosophy, Rutgers University
Bradley Kaye, Associate Professor of Philosophy, Erie Community College
Zvi M. Kedem, Professor of Computer Science, Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences, New York University
Peter D. Klein, Professor of Philosophy, Emeritus, Rutgers University
Bernard W. Kobes, Faculty of Philosophy, Arizona State University
Zak A. Kopeikin, Assistant Teaching Professor, University of Colorado Boulder
Matthew H. Kramer FBA, Professor of Legal & Political Philosophy, Cambridge University
Andy Lamey, Associate Teaching Professor, Philosophy Department, University of California, San Diego
Brian Leiter, Karl N. Llewellyn Professor of Jurisprudence, University of Chicago
Mark Lance, Professor of Philosophy and Professor of Justice and Peace, Georgetown University
David Levy, Associate Professor of Philosophy, State University of New York at Geneseo
Matt Lutz, Associate Professor of Philosophy, Wuhan University
Stephen Macedo, Laurance S. Rockefeller Professor of Politics and the University Center for Human Values, Princeton University
Edouard Machery, Distinguished Professor, University of Pittsburgh
Stephen Maitzen, W. G. Clark Professor of Philosophy, Acadia University
Ron Mallon, Professor & Chair, Department of Philosophy and Director, Philosophy-Neuroscience-Psychology Program, Washington University in St. Louis
JB Manchak, Professor of Logic and Philosophy of Science, University of California, Irvine
Jose Luis Marti, Associate Professor of Legal and Political Philosophy, Universitat Pompeu Fabra
Ron McClamrock, Associate Professor of Philosophy, University at Albany, SUNY
Jeff McMahan, Sekrya and White’s Professor of Moral Philosophy, University of Oxford
Dale E. Miller, Associate Dean for Research and Graduate Studies, College of Arts and Letters and Professor of Philosophy, Department of Philosophy and Religious Studies, Old Dominion University
Francesca Minerva, Research Fellow, University of Milan
J.J. Moreso, Professor of Legal Philosophy, Universitat Pompeu Fabra
Christopher W. Morris, Professor Emeritus of Philosophy, University of Maryland
Wes Morriston, Professor Emeritus, Department of Philosophy, University of Colorado Boulder
Joshua Mugg, Assistant Professor of Philosophy, Park University
Jeremy Ravi Mumford, Assistant Professor of History, Brown University
Peter Murphy, Professor of Philosophy, University of Indianapolis
Eric Nelson, Robert M. Beren Professor of Government, Harvard University
Alastair Norcross, Professor of Philosophy, University of Colorado Boulder
John Oberdiek, Distinguished Professor of Law, Rutgers University
Serena Olsaretti, Research Professor, ICREA & Universitat Pompeu Fabra
Camilo Ortiz, Associate Professor of Psychology and Director of Clinical Training, Doctoral Program in Clinical Psychology, Long Island University, C.W. Post Campus
Jonathan Parry, Assistant Professor, Department of Philosophy, Logic and Scientific Method, London School of Economics and Political Science
Steve Petersen, Associate Professor of Philosophy, Niagara University
Charles Pigden, Associate Professor of Philosophy, University of Otago
Allen Podet, Professor of Philosophy and Religious Studies, Buffalo State College, State University of New York
Douglas W. Portmore, Professor of Philosophy, Arizona State University
Jason T. Potter, Assistant Teaching Professor, University of Colorado at Boulder
Dr. Eliezr Rabinovich, Former Adjunct Professor, Department of Materials Engineering, Technion - Israel Institute of Technology
Joel Pust, Professor of Philosophy, University of Delaware
Philip Reed, Professor of Philosophy, Canisius College
David Rosenthal, Professor, Programs in Philosophy and Linguistics Coordinator, Cognitive Science Concentration, Graduate Center, City University of New York
Gabriel Rossman, Associate Professor of Sociology, University of California, Los Angeles
Ruth Sample, Associate Professor, Department of Philosophy, University of New Hampshire
George Schedler, Emeritus Professor of Philosophy, Southern Illinois University, Carbondale
Paul Schofield, Assistant Professor of Philosophy, Bates College
Udo Schuklenk, Professor of Philosophy and Ontario Research Chair in Bioethics, Queen’s University
John Schwenkler, Professor of Philosophy, Florida State University
Stefan Sciaraffa, Associate Professor, Department of Philosophy, McMaster University
Andrew Sepielli, Associate Professor of Philosophy, University of Toronto
Rob Sica, Social Sciences & Humanities Librarian, Colorado State University Libraries
Peter Singer, Ira W. DeCamp Professor of Bioethics, Princeton University
Geoffrey R. Stone, Edward H. Levi Distinguished Professor of Law, University of Chicago
Andrew Sneddon, Professor, Department of Philosophy, University of Ottawa
Bradford Skow, Laurance S. Rockefeller Professor of Philosophy, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Barry Smith, Distinguished Professor of Philosophy, University at Buffalo
Rogers M. Smith, Christopher H. Browne Distinguished Professor of Political Science, University of Pennsylvania
Walter Soffer, Professor of Philosophy, State University of New York at Geneseo
Hillel Steiner, Emeritus Professor of Political Philosophy, University of Manchester
Nadine Strossen, John Marshall Harlan II Professor of Law, Emerita, New York Law School
Alison Suen, Associate Professor of Philosophy, Iona College
David Sullivan, Professor of Philosophy, Metropolitan State University of Denver
David Talcott, Associate Professor of Philosophy, The King's College
James Stacey Taylor, Professor, Department of Philosophy, Religion, and Classical Studies, The College of New Jersey
Torbjorn Tannsjo, Kristian Claeson Professor of Practical Philosophy, Stockholm University
Sergio Tenenbaum, Professor of Philosophy, University of Toronto
Christopher Tollefsen, Professor and Chair of Philosophy, University of South Carolina
Michael Tooley, College Professor of Distinction, Department of Philosophy, University of Colorado
Mel A. Topf, Feinstein College of Arts and Sciences, Roger Williams University
Rebecca Tuvel, Associate Professor and Chair, Philosophy, Rhodes College
Peter Vallentyne, Florence G. Kline Chair in Philosophy, University of Missouri
Tim van Gelder, Associate Professor, University of Melbourne
Pekka Väyrynen, Professor of Moral Philosophy, University of Leeds
Michael Veber, Associate Professor, East Carolina University
Eugene Volokh, Gary T. Schwartz Distinguished Professor of Law, University of California, Los Angeles
David Wallace, W.A. Mellon Professor of Philosophy, University of Pittsburgh
Brandon Warmke, Associate Professor, Department of Philosophy, Bowling Green State University
Justin Weinberg, Associate Professor, Department of Philosophy, University of South Carolina
Andy Wible, Instructor of Philosophy, Muskegon Community College
Nathaniel Wilcox, Professor of Economics, Appalachian State University
James Lindley Wilson, Assistant Professor of Political Science, University of Chicago
LTC Stephen N. Woodside, Academy Professor of Philosophy, Department of English and Philosophy, United States Military Academy