About The Series

The CIVICA Data Science Seminar series is a unique multi-disciplinary series focused on applications and methodologies of data science for the social, political, and economic world.

Session 1 Details

Freedom of speech plays a crucial role in science and the pursuit of knowledge. However, recent evidence indicates a decline in such freedom in the academy with rising calls for sanctions against scholars who make statements about matters of public interest that are deemed controversial or challenge prevailing norms. Using a novel dataset, we examine the effect of these incidents using a series of difference-in-differences designs. We find that the affected scholar’s body of work, published prior to the incident, receives about 4 percent fewer citations after the incident. Affected scholars also become less productive after the incidents, publishing 23 percent fewer works than scholars with similar characteristics.

Considering that scholars at the same institution as the affected scholars and scholars closer in their coauthorship network tend to cite the affected scholars' work less, our results seem to be motivated by scholars seeking to distance themselves. A large number of robustness checks and additional analysis confirms these findings. Our results oppose the Mertonian norm of universalism, which suggests that scientific notions must be evaluated independently from the personal opinions of the scholars proposing them. We provide evidence of a potentially worrisome subjectivity and bias in scientific inquiry which shades doubts over the credibility, objectivity, and inclusivity of the scientific research process.

Seminar Speaker

Agenda