The Origins Podcast with Lawrence Krauss - Carole Hooven | The War on Science Interviews | Day 11

Episode Date: August 3, 2025

To celebrate the release on July 29th of The War on Science, we have recorded 20 podcast interviews with authors from the book. Starting on July 22nd, with Richard Dawkins, we will be releasing one interview per day. Interviewees in order, will be:Richard Dawkins July 23rdNiall Ferguson July 24thNicholas Christakis July 25thMaarten Boudry July 26thAbigail Thompson July 27thJohn Armstrong July 28thSally Satel – July 30Elizabeth Weiss – July 31Solveig Gold and Joshua Katz – August 1Frances Widdowson – August 2Carole Hooven – August 3Janice Fiamengo – August 4Geoff Horsman – August 5Alessandro Strumia – August 6Roger Cohen and Amy Wax – August 7Peter Boghossian – August 8Lauren Schwartz and Arthur Rousseau – August 9Alex Byrne and Moti Gorin – August 10Judith Suissa and Alice Sullivan – August 11Karleen Gribble – August 12Dorian Abbot – August 13The topics these authors discuss range over ideas including the ideological corruption of science, historical examples of the demise of academia, free speech in academia, social justice activism replacing scholarship in many disciplines, disruptions of science from mathematics to medicine, cancel culture, the harm caused by DEI bureaucracies at universities, distortions of biology, disingenous and dangerous distortions of the distinctions between gender and sex in medicine, and false premises impacting on gender affirming care for minors, to, finally, a set of principles universities should adopt to recover from the current internal culture war. The dialogues are blunt, and provocative, and point out the negative effects that the current war on science going on within universities is having on the progress of science and scholarship in the west. We are hoping that the essays penned by this remarkable group of scholars will help provoke discussion both within universities and the public at large about how to restore trust, excellence, merit, and most important sound science, free speech and free inquiry on university campuses. Many academics have buried their heads in the sand hoping this nonsense will go away. It hasn’t and we now need to become more vocal, and unified in combatting this modern attack on science and scholarship. The book was completed before the new external war on science being waged by the Trump administration began. Fighting this new effort to dismantle the scientific infrastructure of the country is important, and we don’t want to minimized that threat. But even if the new attacks can be successfully combatted in Congress, the Courts, and the ballot box, the longstanding internal issues we describe in the new book, and in the interviews we are releasing, will still need to be addressed to restore the rightful place of science and scholarship in the west. I am hoping that you will find the interviews enlightening and encourage you to look at the new book when it is released, and help become part of the effort to restore sound science and scholarship in academia. With no further ado, The War on Science interviews…As always, an ad-free video version of this podcast is also available to paid Critical Mass subscribers. Your subscriptions support the non-profit Origins Project Foundation, which produces the podcast. The audio version is available free on the Critical Mass site and on all podcast sites, and the video version will also be available on the Origins Project YouTube. Get full access to Critical Mass at lawrencekrauss.substack.com/subscribe

Hi, and welcome to the Origins Podcast. I'm your host Lawrence Krause. As many of you know, my new book, The War on Science, is appearing July 29th of this year in the United States and Canada. And to celebrate that, we've interviewed many of the authors of the 39 authors who have contributed to this volume, and we have 20 separate podcast interviews

that will be airing over the next 20 days, starting July 22nd, before and after the book first appears with many of the authors in the book on a host of different subjects. The authors we will have interviews with in order of appearance over the next 20 days are Richard Dawkins, Neil Ferguson, Nicholas Christakis, Martin Boudre, Abigail Thompson, John Armstrong, Sally Sattel, Solveig Gold, and Joshua Katz, Francis Woodison, Carol Hoven, Janice Fiamengo, Jeff Horsman, Alessendro, Sturumia, Roger Cohen and Amy Wax, Peter Bogosian, Lauren Schwartz and Arthur Russo,

Alex Byrne and Modi Gorin, Judith Sisa, and Alice Sullivan, Carleen Grible, and finally, Dorian Abbott. The topics that will be discussed will range over the need for free speech and open inquiry and science and the need to preserve scientific integrity, stressed by our first podcast interviewer Richard Dawkins and we'll once again go over historical examples of how academia has been hijacked by ideology in the past and the negative consequences that have come from that to issues of how specific disciplines, including mathematics,

have been distorted and how certain departments at universities now specifically claim that they are social activists, and a degree in their field is a degree in either critical social justice or social activism, not a degree in a specific area of scholarship, how ideology has permeated universities. We'll proceed also to discuss issues in medicine. Sally Settel will talk about how social justice is hijacked medicine, and also when it comes to issues of gender-affirming care,

we have a variety of authors who are going to speak. about the issues there and how too often gender affirming care claims are made that are not based on empirical evidence. In fact, falsely discuss the literature in ways that are harmful to young people. We will talk to several people who, for one reason or another, have been canceled for saying things. Francis Whittleson at Mount Royal University in Canada and Carol Hoeven from Harvard, who eventually had to leave Harvard after saying on television that sex is binary in biology. We'll be talking to people who've looking at the impact of diversity, equity, inclusion in academia, and how it's restricting free inquiry, and also restricting in many ways scientific merit at those universities.

And finally, Dorian Abbott, the last contributor to our series, will be talking about three principles he believes are essential to separate science and politics and keep academia free from ideology and more for open questioning and progress and to make sure that science is based on empirical evidence and where we go where the evidence is, whether it's convenient or not, whether it's politically correct or not, and we're willing to debate all ideas that nothing is sacred, a central feature of what science should be about and what in some sense this podcast is about. So I hope you really enjoy the next 20 days and we've enjoyed bringing it to you.

So with no further ado, the War on Science, the interviews. Well, Carol Hoving, it's a pleasure to see you again and to have you on the Orgence Podcast, and it's also great to have you contributing to the War on Science. Thanks for being here. Thank you so much for asking me to contribute and for hosting me today, and I'm really looking forward to our conversation.

I always have enjoyed our conversations, and I know I'll enjoy this one. But what you may not know, you may not be glued to YouTube to watch The Origins Podcast, but The Origins podcast, so I like to find out about people's origins of how they got to the starting point of what we're going to talk about. So I want to learn a little bit more about you. I know, so I know you did a BA in Antioch College. Where's Antioch?

Is it in Ohio? Antioch is in Ohio. And it has a storied past. Actually, my parents met there. My mom and my dad met there in the late, let's see, 50s. No, sorry. Earlier than that. And anyway, my parents met there.

But it was known as a pretty liberal institution even then. And it was extremely liberal. And it was the first university to have a co-op program. It's actually the first college to have a co-op program. education program. So I got to live on a kibbutz, travel around Egypt, work for the government, to work with autistic kids, work with schizophrenic adults as part of my education. So I would take three months and go and have these really interesting experiences, and that gave me the travel bug. But I should mention that they also canceled me when I was supposed to give a book talk on my

book, T, the story of testosterone, they canceled me for my ostensibly transphobic works. But anyway, yes, so I got a BA at Antioch, and it was wonderful. It was wonderful for me at the time, and it changed a lot. It became extremely woke is what happened. Yes, of course, like most places, but when we'll talk about that. So what was your degree in? Was it? Psychology. I thought it was psychology. Okay. Now, your parents met there. You didn't grow up in Ohio, though, did you? No, I grew up in Massachusetts. Okay, but your parents were, so what guy you in psychology?

Were your parents academics at all or no? My father, they got divorced when I was three, but my dad had, was a ABD for his MIT dissertation. So he was sort of a failed academic. And my mom, and then I was raised with my mom and my stepfather. my stepfather was a professor at Brandeis from it's from 1950 on he was a professor of american studies and i should mention that his brother victor feuds so my brother my father stepfather who raised me is uh lawrence fuchs and his brother uh who recently died at i think 99 was uh victor fuchs who's a well known uh health care economist and i should just say publicly here that i see publicly here that i

saw at his memorial service, which was on Zoom, Alan Garber, praising my uncle for having been his mentor. And this was shortly after the congressional hearing in which my name was brought up by Elise Stefonic to Claudine Gay as an example of Harvard's hypocrisy, not supporting someone to say that, who says there are two sexes, but allowing people to, um, to, to protest during October 7th in ways that intimidated the Jewish students. But so I saw that. And then I called Garber's office. He was the provost at the time because I had seen him sitting right behind Claudine Gay.

And then I saw him at my uncle's service. And I thought, holy crap, he's this family friend. He loves my uncle. And that he refused or his office said he can't meet with everyone who reaches out. Yeah. Okay. Once again, Lucy administrators at that conversation earlier.

But so, yes, they were, so my stepfather, who I was raised with, was an academic, and my mom was in academic administration. Her last job, her last job was the VP at Wellesley College of development. Okay, so they were happy. Well, so okay, so you came from academic household,

and it wasn't too surprising then that maybe you wanted to be an academic or I assume. And that was your, and what got you interested in psychology, Your father had a real degree, right, from MIT? So what was he was in? Well, no, he didn't get it. He didn't get it.

He was interested in psychology and philosophy, but he ended up not pursuing that career. I think it was just interested in human behavior, ultimately. But then at Antioch, as a psychology major, I was really blown away by when I started learning about the brain and took a course biological psychology. And I thought, this is it. This is what I need is something firm. or something testable, you know, and then became interested in evolution and did more traveling and switched careers and eventually went to Harvard for my graduate degree. Yes, okay, I needed your graduate degree in biological anthropology.

Well, yeah, and that department, I should say, morphed into human evolutionary biology. And organismal evolution or something? No, no. So this is a very important distinction at Harvard because there, because the other department, there's another biology department, which is organismic and evolutionary biology. My department was human evolutionary, is human, sorry, my ex-depart, whatever you want to call it, is human evolutionary biology. And there was another situation where there was an attack on me from the, essentially, the chair of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology.

So there's OEB and HEB. My old department was HEB. But in between the two, you were, I don't know if it got you interested in biological anthropology, but you were in Uganda, right, with chimpanzees watching them. So, yeah, I was supposed to be out there for a year. So I had applied to Harvard

to the biological anthropology program. I wanted to work with Richard Rangham because I was inspired by his book. So I was interested in human behavior, and he had this book about the evolutionary origins of human aggression. And it wasn't aggression that I was interested in particular, but he, through this book, showed me how we can answer questions about large patterns of human behavior by using an evolutionary framework

and that you could actually study non-human animals and look for what makes us similar and what makes us different. So I applied. When I was at my university, we had him. We came and talked about just that subject. Go on. Yeah. Yeah.

And it was, it's fascinating because it's taking human culture out of the mix, right? And I had, this was planting the seeds of my skepticism about claims that culture is the cause of things like sex differences over inherited biology, say. and I came to understand that it's a deep mix of the two forces. But that, so I applied to Harvard to work with Richard Wrangham. I got rejected because I had no experience. I'd been working in like a startup software company since, you know, for 10 years or something. And I had traveled a lot and read a lot. It's 10 years between your undergraduate.

I didn't know that. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So I could just completely changed careers applied to this graduate. program. Of course I didn't get in. I went to Antioch, which didn't even give grades. Yeah. Okay. So I pestered a bunch of people in the department. I met with Richard. He offered me

this job out in Uganda managing his research site for a year and doing some research of my own. And I did that. And what happened, which was amazing, you know, being out essentially in the jungle, like in the wild with wild chimps but just mind blowing because when you see them, you know, you can see them in the movies or on documentaries and stuff, but when you're right there with them,

it just hits you in the gut. I mean, like tearing up, just thinking about it, my first time seeing them, how much like us they are, right? And again, you're in the jungle. It's not about human culture at all. It's just about what we share genetically and how that leads to, you know, the mechanisms, hormones, neurotransmitters,

and all these aspects of our biology that unite us deeply, deeply, you know, in deep evolutionary ways. So I ended up having to get evacuated because this was in 1998 and 99, and there was a huge amount of political turmoil and violence and, like, really brutal. violence at the time in the Congo that was like spilling over to where I was in Western Uganda and people were getting hacked up. I mean, it was awful and scary. And the Peace Corps had to be evacuated. There were threats against white people of beheading. There was some some really horrific violence against a group of tourists from Europe who were at the Bwindi research site, watching. watching gorillas, and they all ended up being just brutally raped and murdered.

And so I was still out there pretty much alone in a research site. I had my field assistance in the middle of the Kanyahuara research area. And so I ended up getting evacuated after eight months because supposedly the rebels were coming towards my site. So that experience where I'm watching the males, I'm in the forest and I'm really the excited, what was really exciting to me was the males, the male violence especially, because it was so, it was so frequent, not extreme. So what's interesting is the male violence, the male aggression, is relatively subdued within a community of related males. But they're competing for dominance. They're competing for sex.

They're competing for resources like food or sleeping spaces. But when they would defend their territory, they would cooperate because, and they would, there was no fighting. There were deep bonds between them. And they would form essentially a line and patrol the periphery of their territory looking for neighboring males to pick off. They are guarding the resources that the females need. to reproduce. Like, it's so interesting and deep. And Richard was the one who kind of figured out how that worked,

that the males are essentially guarding the territory that has the food that the females need. So all the males by cooperating are benefiting reproductively, essentially. And they have psychological adaptations to allow them to cooperate in two different kinds of violence. The proactive violence, where they're trying to pick off, cooperate,

to pick off neighboring males and then the reactive kind of aggression within the social dominance hierarchy. But anyway, so I got really interested in testosterone and for obvious reasons, I think, because of that, because the females were not doing that in the same way. Of course, they can be aggressive also,

but they were primarily tending to their offspring and, you know, significantly more peaceful. There just wasn't routine. aggression. In fact, I never saw any in eight months, but they are, they can be extremely aggressive. You know, it's a totally aside, but it's interesting because I, a good friend of mine, late friends of all I've had on the program. Bonobos versus chimps. I wonder if female testosterone, that's testosterone. Anyway.

Female chimps? Yeah, no, female bonobos. They do. Yeah, okay. They do. There's a whole interesting testosterone thing going on with bonobos. That's very different. We have Martin Serbeck now at Harvard in my. the department I used to be in who works on bonobos and is producing a lot of really interesting research.

We need a lot more research on them. They're not easy to habituate. They're much harder to get to in the Congo. Say it again. Friends is books and stories about bonobos. Friends of all is... Yes. Anyway.

And the way they use sex to diffuse tension, I mean, it's really quite interesting. It's a great. Yeah, the difference. Well, what's intriguing is that we're equally related to bonobos and chimps, apparently evolutionary. So we have, you know,

that's fascinating. Yeah, there's a lot of argument about which ones were sort of more closer to behaviorally. But to get back to the story, which is now, yeah, which is weaving all around. So you went and you spent that year, or almost a year and when you were saved. And then you were able to, based on that,

you had enough credentials to get into Harvard. Is that what? I had reapplied from out in the, field and yeah, and then I got into the grad program. Okay. I saw a miracle. And that's when you actually worked on hormonal evolution and the basis of sex differences and things like that.

That was your... Yeah, so I ended up actually switching focus, my focus, and I worked with Steve Costlin, who's in cognitive neuropsychology. So I did a lot of my actual work then in the psychology department. And that's where I initially got to know Steve, and I ended up being a teaching fellow for him and his course as a grad student. But I actually collected saliva from men and gave them various cognitive tests and showed them pornography and dental surgery to look at the testosterone responses. But ultimately, I did my dissertation on sex differences in mental rotation, which is an aspect of human cognition, of human cognition. actually and lots of other animals. So spatial, we have, you know, spatial ability and verbal

ability and we don't, you know, really realize when we're using our spatial ability, but we're using it all the time. So men are better than women in spatial ability. People don't like me saying that, but that's just what the data say. That's one of the, that is the largest cognitive sex difference there is. Spatial. Interesting. Yeah. Maps. Okay. Interesting. Well, okay, so this is to establish that you know something about sex, at least. Okay. I have sex, at least sex differences.

Yeah, I mean, that's what I've been focusing on since the beginning. Yeah. And so, okay, so let's now, now we'll get to your piece, which is why I left Harvard and it's the piece. But the ordeals that you've gone through, which, which, you know, the book has a variety of different kinds of experiences of people. And the different facets of your experience are in some ways quite typical and also equally horrendous. So let's go. And, of course, it becomes quite public.

Because you were at Harvard. So you're, and the fact, as you begin by saying in the piece, my ordeal has been used to illustrate the hypocrisy of the assertions by Harvard leaders, that they honor the robust exchange of challenging ideas. And so, and you were mentioned. as you point out in the congressional hearing, Claudia and Gay had said a number of silly things, but had said that their administration was deeply committed to free expression.

And then it was Tim Walberg, who stood at the hearing apparently, brought your name up. Carol Hoven, an evolutionary. Oh, wait, was it? Yeah, Tim Walberg, according to. Okay. No, that's right. That's right.

Sorry, thank you because I think I've told other people it's the least, but you're right. Thank you. That's right. Well, I assume telling truth because I read it. article. Yeah. Right.

Said, Carol Hoover, an evolutionary biologist, was forced to resign because she stated that a person's sex is biological and binary. And so, President Kay, in what world is a call for violence against Jews' protected speech believes that sex is biological and binary isn't? Now, we did get a little wrong. You were sort of mentally forced to resign, but not actually forced to resign. But we'll get to. And so, but that demonstrates that, you know, and that kind of hypocrisy, which is, which is one

of the reasons that I think ultimately, there's many reasons why perhaps Claudine had to resign. Here's your statement, which also comes, which is also in your piece. And this amazed me for Claudine Gay in particular to say this, someone who's, you're not the only person at Harvard that she, whose politically incorrect beliefs were probably as dean. But she said, the moment that our students arrive on campus, whether it is to be begin their Harvard journey as an undergraduate or one of the professional schools. The message to them is clear that we're an inclusive community, but one deeply committed to free expression. Such nonsense.

It came last, and we've talked about this a number of times, it came last in the the Foundation of Renewild Rights and Expressions, Free Speech Rankings. In fact, it had a negative score for a while until it was raised to zero. And so you, how, so, okay, we've already talked about your back. background. You know, basically you got Harvard in 2004. And the interesting thing is, you have, you then obtained a kind of unique position. Yes, sir. But why do you explain what, what? Yeah. So as a graduate student, when I left my career, which probably would have ended up being lucrative, far more lucrative than being the low-level academic that I was, I left it because it just wasn't super interesting.

or fulfilling to me. And I had this strong curiosity about what we've already, these issues that we've already talked about, which really arose from traveling all over the world by myself and seeing different cultures and different ecosystems, et cetera. So when I applied to the grad program, I had no idea what I wanted to do. I just wanted to dive into this area and do some research and explore it. So when I got my PhD, you know, it wasn't that I had this ambition to be a big professor, but I found that I loved teaching and I just didn't have the required ambition that I would have needed to even try to stay at Harvard. I just would never have reached that level. You know, you have to be on the top in the world and there's no way that was going to be me.

But I think I was an excellent, I know I was an excellent teacher. During you talk about things, it's so clear that you must be an excellent teacher. Okay. Well, I got, you know, really strong teaching. reviews. But now that I don't have that in my life anymore, I was working really hard, but it's until you teach, you can't really realize how deeply fulfilling it is to work that hard and get everything that you, I'm going to cry, everything that you gave back. It's so deeply satisfying emotionally and it's interesting. You know, it's deeply interesting. It's challenging. You're always learning and you see the excitement in your students and you see them change and

learning grow. So I was totally into it. And I knew I knew I wanted to stay and do that. And I did. And I could do it because they hired me as a lecturer. And you can stay on as a lecturer at Harvard for three years. And then you have to go. But they started a program essentially where they had PhD-level academic advisors in the science departments, and I got hired as that. And eventually, I became co-director of undergraduate studies. So this was ideal for me because I got to immerse myself in the undergraduate life. And so not only was I teaching and advising and serving as the supervisor for senior theses and working with students on those and advising them on their research, but also really getting to know them and what they wanted out of life and what courses they should, not just what courses they should take, but who they wanted to be, you know, and they ended up opening up to me about a lot of things and there were very strong relationships. And that was wonderful. All of that was great. The part that wasn't so great, but I was fine with it. I, you know, went to faculty meetings and everything, but it wasn't a tenure track faculty member. So I'm kind of bothered.

of that faculty totem pole. But nevertheless, in the sense that you were untenured, but basically had an indefinite appointment, unlike election. Yeah, and I knew that I was going to be there until I could no longer do it. You know, it was a great job.

But now I realize how hard I was working and how many other things I neglected now that I have a little more time. But, yeah, it was a rich, very rich career. and I felt extremely lucky and I worked like I was lucky. So that's part of what, and I had glowing reviews across the board.

For the advising, I won awards. I won a lot of teaching awards. I was voted favorite professor many times. So what happened was shocking. You know, I just, that's the background. I was like, I just was so naive. Faculty member. I mean, we love teacher and,

colleague, I assume. I think so. I mean, how could you not be? You're so chum. But anyway, and then you also wrote that book. Oh, right. Yep. And is that, and then in July 2021, you were inviting out Fox and Friends.

Was it because of the book, or how did that invite actually happen? It's not in your article, but it's intriguing for me. So Katie Herzog, who's a journalist and co-host with Jesse Single, the now co-hosts with Jesse Singleton, the Blockton reported podcast, which is excellent. She at that time had written an investigative piece for what was Barry Weiss's substack. She didn't yet have the free press. And this piece was right up my alley. So I was invited to supply a quote. Her piece was on what is happening. This was in 2021. And it was not the same as it is now. This was the height. You can look at the graphs that

show the height of cancellations and woke craziness. It was 2021, exactly when all of this happened to me. So Katie was investigating the claims that medical school professors were backing away from using terms like pregnant woman and male and female. My entire career was built on the importance of the categories of male and female and knowledge about how we're different for, cultural and evolutionary reasons and, you know, why essentially we're not the same and the ways that were different or not just due to culture. So as an educator and an expert in this area, and I should just say the way that I always taught and which was always, it always worked with my students. I mean, okay, granted there began to be a few exceptions around 2015. But I, I,

assumed and told my students that they would be offended. And I said, this is great. This means you're learning. It's how you respond to this is what matters. You know, this should be a red flag that you need to open your heart and mind and listen and challenge evidence. You know, this is not about you and your emotions. It's about reality. And it worked.

So there's no way. So I was like, yeah, I'll go on fire. I'm a Democrat. But. And I thought. Oh, maybe people, oh. Find you from that, though. I mean, I'm just wondering, you know,

the producers look around. Okay. So I contributed to the article and I said this is. Oh, you contribute. So I contributed to the article. Sorry, I skipped over. It is my fault for being all going all over the place. I contributed to the article and I said, no,

especially medical school students need to learn what male and female is. These are our future doctors. This is ridiculous. Blah, blah. They invited Katie and she did. declined and were they, yeah, that's another story. They invited me and they're like, do you want to be on it? And you, I just want to say you, yeah, I mean, she probably knew the whole thing better

than you what was going to happen. But I am, she would have said it. There are other reasons for this. But I should just say my book had just come out, had never been on TV before. And you can tell from the clip if you see it. I don't know how to behave. And you said that understanding the facts about biology, doesn't prevent us from treating people with respect.

We can respect their gender identities and use their preferred pronouns. But you also mentioned that educators are increasing self-centered for fear of using the wrong language that could result in being shunned or even fired. Nothing. Yeah, I said people are getting fired for saying what I'm saying, which all I'm saying is there are two sexes. It's not on a spectrum. It's about the kinds of gametes organisms produce.

You didn't say they were some sexes, right? I mean, you specifically said that sex is binary. Yeah. I mean, I was very clear because I was sick of people saying, insisting that it's on a spectrum for ideological reasons. It is bullshit. It's not on a spectrum. That's ridiculous. They're two sexes.

There's sperm and eggs. You have to get them together to reproduce. Yeah. Yep. Okay. Now, okay. So that was your first experience. And then you discovered that in the modern world, speaking not only accurately, but speaking politically, you know, to maybe the wrong people.

is problematic. And so... Okay, can I just... Sorry, I know you probably we have a little time limit here or something, but... No, I just... Okay, I just want to interject.

I didn't discover. I knew that some grad students didn't like the views, my views, the woker grad students in human evolutionary biology, don't forget, right? And so I thought, oh, maybe the grad students

will be upset with me, but of course the faculty, no, I'm not transphobic and are going to defend me. And I've been, you know, a loyal and excellent faculty member for over 20 years or however long. Yeah, it wasn't exactly faculty. Whatever. I was there full in the department for a very long time. And so I was just like, and plus it was really important. I was like, of course I'm going to say this. There's no way I'm not saying this regardless of what happened. So I was just like, but I had faith, I think, that the administration or faculty, if, if anything happened, would support me.

But I didn't like consider it. I was just like, I'm doing this anyway, whatever. What we've learned and what's been explicit in a number of articles, but it's quite clear that universities will, are not interested in either truth or or defending or academic integrity or free speech. University administrators, they're interested in in what is expedient for them at the moment. Yeah, I mean, of course they're interested in those things, but they're much more interested in expediency for sure.

They're much more governed by it. And that's part of the problem. And one of the reasons it's necessary to speak out is that, is that, you know, if we're going to change this cultural issue internally, and that's what the book's all about, not only the faculty have to speak out, but we have to realize that the problems are, and many problems are in an academic administration of people without backbound.

And really their jobs are really, remember, they should be to remember what the mission of a university is all about, which is to produce and disseminate knowledge and promote, free speech and free inquiry. And a lot of them have lost track of that. Their job is to make sure certain people are happy and the donations come in and that there's no online stories that might embarrass someone.

And of course, the big problem is, as you next point out, is that universities become dominated by these bureaucracy called diversity and inclusion bureaucracies. And they're very powerful within universities. But in your case, they're so powerful that many departments And not all universities have this, but clearly at Harvard they did. Well, I think a lot of the universities do have that. Yeah.

And people don't appreciate how powerful they are within the departments. Yeah, yeah, exactly. I mean, yeah, anyway. But so there was their department of DI committees that are staffed by faculty staff and grad students, which is amazing. And you say these committees, and they weren't at the universities I was at at the time. But in any case, it's amazing to me. They have profound influence on departmental culture and a matter is ranging from who should give a talk.

Wow. What is taught? Oh, yeah. He's fired. And it reaches into ideal academic life. And what is, I guess, not surprising in retrospect, having seen it, especially seeing that some I've experiences too, some graduate students are more interested in things than what they're studying, that the director of the task force was a graduate student, which is interesting. you'd think the director would be a faculty member or a staff member. But she responded.

Can I read her response? Okay. She tweeted that as director of the Diversity and Inclusion Task Force from my department at Harvard. So she clearly representing herself as speaking on behalf of my department and Harvard. That's the mistake. I'm appalled and frustrated by the transphobic and harmful remarks made by a member of my department in this interview with Fox and Friends. With my picture and name right underneath.

And yeah, exactly. And I'm the co-director of undergraduate studies. I'm the one who's supposed to be taking care, which I always did. And everyone in my department knew how much I cared about them. So there's no way. Yeah, anyway. And so you responded, which may have, you know, which is also interest in the modern world, sometimes responding is good or bad.

But you said, you quote or tweet and said, I appreciate your concerns. could you let me and the Twitterverse know exactly what I said that you consider transphobic or harmful to undergrads? I think you know that I care deeply about all of my students also care about science. How about a discussion? And then reference the Harvard HGB department. And it got a lot of attention.

And it also raised the profile of her tweet. And that may or may not have caused, you know, introduce the next thing, which is that there was a lot of media coverage, right? of and and one could say biased media coverage. Do you want to do you want to go into that or yeah? Yeah. I mean, the question of whether I should have retweeted. I had like a thousand followers on Twitter or something.

Like I just wasn't really using it that much. And plus I had no public profile. I was nobody. I think I felt like I want to control this narrative. I don't want this charge from my own department out there uncountered. But I think, honestly, I also must have wanted to expose, just pop the Zit, because I knew that there was this tension in the department. Like this had been going on with this committee and the way the faculty were responding, just kowtowing to the committee. And they're always sending out surveys.

How is everybody feeling? Are you feeling offended? Do you want to join this affinity group? Let's spend all this time and money and energy. on having meetings where we listen to all of your complaints and we send out 50,000 emails asking what your identity is and if you're suffering in any way and telling you to report what you see and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Claudine Gay, what she said was BS

because there were never any emails from the administration or inside our department about, hey, let's ensure that we uphold the values of Veritas and do our fucking jobs. That wasn't a thing. There's so much time and energy given to essentially the graduate students. And it was like this in so many departments.

And, you know, if the grad students really didn't like who they wanted to hire because they maybe had more conservative views or something, that was taken very seriously because the faculty don't want to deal with complaining graduate students who might say something on Twitter. Who knows? Or it will make their lives miserable or ruin their reputations. You know, they're all very sensitive to reputations. damage. And of course, the higher up in the administration you are, the more sensitive you are to that kind of damage, you've got a lot to lose. So, yes. So I retweeted her tweet. And then it was picked up like by the Australian, by the, you know, in New York and UK and all over the place. That it looked like a DEI dean had accused me of transphobia.

And Harvard professor refuses to use the term pregnant people and cists on women is accused of... Didn't say anything about that, about... Molly. ...woman or anything. Yeah, I know. I didn't. Anyway, I said male and female. I just stuck to that.

The deadline was wrong and it says you were accused by your colleague. And she was a black female and that mattered because nobody wanted to confront her or, you know, punish her or tweet that this. doesn't represent our department because she had more sort of, I was punching down on the identity and on this status rank. It was a powerful faculty member were punching down. You as a non-tenured individual, but somehow powerful were punching down. In fact, there was a lot of discussion about that, apparently. And then the Harvard Crimson.

Well, she claimed she was suffering racist abuse and that I had done this to her. She said, you know, she respected you and you asked that we can't, we, we can't. can be carrying in sense of the needs of identities of everyone while sticking to reality. But the article linked to a statement claimed that she'd suffered a multi-day deluge of personal harassment, racist abuse, and threats of physical arm after her response was amplified by you. So it's my fault. So essentially, that was the narrative that I had done this to her. So let's talk about how the administration started to then deal with this. So you got an email that was sent to the department chair, and it was called, and it was called Diversity, Inclusion and Belonging Committee wants to express our unwaiving support for transgender individuals in our community and everywhere.

And it goes on. And so that was from the OEB chair. That was a whole other complaint. It was a separate situation that happened after this one. But my chair essentially pretended that he was going. going and a lot I'm sorry but this is what happened he was behaving as though he was going to send this very kind and supportive letter saying that I'm not this is not some you know tenured faculty member this is a beloved um I forget the actual verbiage let me let me step back yeah you go ahead

you know it's important um the university administrators shouldn't as you point I should not publicly disparage the characters of those with whom they disagree and But on the other hand, they do it all the time. And you realize that unless you had some support from your administrators, including the dean, Claudine Gay at the time, you were going to be in trouble. At this point, you realized you needed some support. So that's when you got an email for the Dean of Science offering to meet. But in the end, that didn't work out well because you had the to marry to ask him a question.

And you got a stern lecture about asking questions. Yes. No, like, no, about don't interrupt me. Because there was nothing about me. It was all we're going to establish this committee and that committee. And I was like, I need someone to help me here. I'm crumbling. So you got a draft of an email that, an administrator, you don't say who. From my, it was my chair. Your chair. Sent a draft of an email that included a robust offense of you. Yes. Thank them for this. And then, but that email was never sent. No. And instead, a different email was sent. Yeah.

That looked like I had done something wrong and failed to consider the impact of my words on vulnerable people. But that one was sent after the chair of OEB sent a letter around to a public or to a list serve, you know, a couple hundred people for their department and affiliates where a trans woman grad student on their internal. DEI committee complained about a book talk I was supposed to give hosted by Dan Gilbert, who is a well-known psychology professor who wrote Stumbling on Happiness, who was a friend of mine. And he had the balls to appear with me publicly at that time, which was a big deal because I was being so attacked from within Harvard. And he publicly supported me. That meant a lot to me.

but the trans woman complained that people shouldn't go to the talk because I'm transphobic and here's the evidence of my transphobia. And then the chair, who later apologized to me personally through tears saying she feared for her own reputation, what she did is just send that complaint around to the entire department and others who were also in my department with a forward saying essentially endorsing the complaint saying we support trans people. Like I'm there, she's protecting them, you know, from me. Yeah. Now let's see.

Let's see. This is the email that said it was not the intent of our DIB committee or is that the one from your chair? That was her. Not the intent of RDAB. Sorry, that was the one signed by the chair of OEB and my chair in HED. which I begged him not to send and please send the other one that was super supportive.

But he had a committee who was writing it with him, the dean of, I know this, because he kind of kept me abreast of what was going on. DEI, Dean, Science Dean, and I believe that Claudian Gay

must have been involved. And the communications dean or whatever at Harvard. It basically apologized for you, as if you've done something. It said, yes. We can't have our community

to cause damage to Dr. human's reputation, but to raise important issues about best practices in science communication that protect for the serious impact of our science, impact, our scientific opinions may have on others. We apologize. So it suggested that you, as you say, you'd fail to respect the serious impact of your scientific opinions. Okay. What do you think should have happened? I want, what do you think? I mean, that's exactly the opposite of what should have happened in my view and signaled to me I would not be supported in doing my work. And I was isolated. And I couldn't teach

my class, but we'll probably get to that. But what do you think should have been, should have happened in response to that? What should the letters have said? Well, obviously the letters should have said, Dr. Hoveen was, we defend her right to speak the truth is right. We should have said. And that we, and that she, you know, she's a beloved faculty member and she said nothing that isn't scientifically accurate. And moreover, we, you know, we defend her right to, right. Something along those lines, Right. Academic freedom. The university respects differences of opinion, and we, we, you know, we don't penalize people

for disagreeing, et cetera, et cetera. So that's what it. Yeah, absolutely, absolutely. In any case, you, this, obviously at this point, you were having real problems, as you say, you were diagnosed with severe depression. But then something else happened, and this is, again, typical, that's what I want to talk about it. This wonderful course you taught hormones and behavior, for the first time ever in the spring,

of 2022, no graduate students would agree to serve as teaching fellows for my course. And this was, I assume, some orchestrated activity, I assume. I assume so. I'm sorry. I know. I know. It's, I know it's hard for you. I know from having talked to you before. It's, it's, it's, it's an incredible blow. And, and. So, yeah, I have no way of no, like, verifying that it was the graduate student union that took out this petition against me that was published in the crimson. And I relied on graduate students to teach my class because I had, you know, a pretty, I had generally it was the largest course in the department every year.

There were exceptions to that when like they brought in outside lectures and stuff. But so they refute, like I had no teaching assistance. And so could had to teach, my last course. I was like, all right, that's when I decided I had to leave. I was isolated. Like, I didn't have a lab. I didn't have tenure. I didn't have my own grad students in my own big research area, you know, and the person I worked with most closely, my co-director of graduate studies, who I was a good friend and I worked with for many, many years, shut me out and was cruel, cruel, downright cruel to me. Yeah, that did it. Like, I just felt, and no one was telling me, They knew I felt I had to leave because I was so traumatized and no one, like, said, we love you and we want you to stay.

And this is awful. That just didn't happen. In fact, my chair, when I asked him what I should do, because he was still talking to me, I'm like my co-director, he said, go be a public intellectual. And that's great, but it's not like you have a salary. I mean, the American Enterprise Institute gave me an excellent part-time position. I'm very grateful to them. But yeah, you can't just go be a public intellectual and expect to have the same kind of security and meaning in your life. So I got the message that they didn't want me there either.

So I'm not going to like. Well, you know, I want to. It's probably with bringing up, as you said, a meeting in a joint friend of ours, Pamela Peresti was speaking there. And she pointed out the game cooties. Yes, no, I know. Yeah. It happens. And it's a trans.

it's a sad thing that, you know, the game of kooties were a kid, you could touch someone they have kutis and and and anyone they, you know, if you, if you, if you touch them, you get kudies and and she used that as an example, but it is very true. Academics are by nature afraid of almost everything. And yes, if you publicly defend someone who then you were a risk of, of, of, same thing happened to you. And so people tend to just immediately, shy away, they all, they might privately tell you that they're supportive, but they would, but, but, um, but everyone's afraid. Yes. I think that what she said is useful, partly because they don't want to be contaminated. Yeah. Um, it's scary for them because

reputational damage is in fact the worst. When you're publicly, you have a great reputation and suddenly you're a racist or a transphobe. And I'm supposed and that I need the grad the undergraduates. to trust me. The only way they're going to trust me is if my own people who know me best are going to support me, right? And they were doing the opposite. And what would work is if they all somehow brush, they are the ones who can brush the cooties off essentially by doing their jobs and doing it right and using all of this as a teaching moment to explain how universities work and how there are facts that we need to discover. And that doesn't necessarily say, how you understand those facts doesn't speak to somebody's character or whatever.

So I think that's useful and it really exposes the unbelievable cowardice of these administrators and makes me wonder, what are you even doing in academia? Yes, you have fame and money and you're doing your research, but how do you really feel about yourself? Like I can, I still cannot make sense of how these people I trusted and new and considered friends how they look at themselves in the mirror because they have not spoken to me. Like many of them have not even spoken to me or apologize. No one from the administration has said anything.

Experience is common. That's one of the reasons why it's nice to highlighting this book. It's amazing how that. Right. It's like an dime. Everyone, universities can wave about you and then and then on a dime they'll switch. And if they view it as expedient to let you go, they'll do it. Right.

And just the problem goes away. just make it go away. To go away. So let me read, let me give you the last word. You've had a lot of words, but let me give you another last word by reading the last words of your piece. You say the Harvard motto is Veritas truth. But the truth is that the message that the members of the Harvard community receive every day in emails, trainings, post-worlds, pamphlets, and meetings concerns the message is that what matters most,

certainly above the search for truth is how people's words affect groups deemed, quote, marginalized. I care about ensuring that everyone feels welcome at Harvard. and believe the diversity on campus strengthens the institution. But this must not come at the cost of free speech. And the last line is, you know, such a culture supports knowledge, production, dissemination, and preservation is the true mission of the university. And I think that's a, I think this, you know, that, obviously that's absolutely right.

And your story deems how explains and demonstrates some of the problems. And there are many facets of what we talk about in the book. and I appreciate your forceful and strong and emotional discussion about this issue, which obviously affects you and strongly, but is an issue far broader. It's been, as always, a pleasure to listen to you and to talk to you. Thank you. Thank you so much. Hi, it's Lawrence again.

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