[garrettgarcia]

> But couldn’t this be said about any source of funding? All funders, public or private, make decisions about the projects and people they choose to fund. This selection process is not an infringement on academic freedom.

The authors of the article are not claiming that this infringes on academic freedom, but intellectual freedom. They explain here:

"Intellectual freedom is the principle that all individuals have the right to think for themselves, to express their convictions on any subject, and to give their support, financial or otherwise, only to the ideas they choose. When government coercively seizes your money and uses it to subsidize some research program or viewpoint for any reason, it is violating your intellectual freedom. This is the injustice inherent in all government research grants. It is this that private universities like Harvard should now name and challenge.

Instead, they fight for “academic freedom,” which is actually the opposite of intellectual freedom. It asserts the right of universities and professors to teach, write and research whatever they see fit — and to do it at the taxpayer’s expense."

[MattPalmer1086]

It is certainly intellectually dishonest to claim that the government funding anything you don't like is a violation of your "intellectual freedom". You are still free to think and say anything you like.

Taken to its logical conclusion, it would mean that the government should not fund anything, ever, for any purpose, because someone might disagree with it? Isn't disagreement actually a sign of intellectual freedom?

[garrettgarcia]

> It is certainly intellectually dishonest to claim that the government funding anything you don't like is a violation of your "intellectual freedom".

Agreed. I never claimed that of course, and neither did the authors. What they claimed is that government funding ALWAYS comes with strings attached, therefore the only way to have true intellectual freedom is to reject all funding. Moreover, the difference between government strings and private funding strings are that only government strings come under the threat of force.

[MattPalmer1086]

Sure, didn't think you did claim that, you were just pointing out what the article said.

I think it's a stretch for the article to say that because federal funding will have strings attached it should be rejected to attain "intellectual freedom". But private funding also comes with strings attached. So I guess you could be free to be unfunded if you don't want any strings.

The last part of the article reveals more about the political thinking behind it, when it says:

"When government coercively seizes your money and uses it to subsidize some research program or viewpoint for any reason, it is violating your intellectual freedom."

Whose money is being coercively seized here and whose intellectual freedom is being violated? It's not talking about the universities here.

It very much looks like a typical libertarian "all tax is theft" and "government shouldn't take my money to do things I don't like" argument. Not sure they are really concerned with freedom here, other than freedom from government.

[garrettgarcia]

It may look like typical libertarian argument, but it isn't.

And the fact that taxes are collected coercively is just that: a fact.

Collected coercively by a government != stolen. Taxes aren't theft.