Michael Bloomberg Harvard Commencement Speech 2014 - Harvard

University Commencement 2014

Universities lie at the heart of the American experiment in democracy. They
are places where people of all backgrounds and beliefs can come to study and
debate their ideas freely and openly. Id like to talk with you about how
important it is for that freedom to exist for everyone, no matter how strongly
we may disagree with anothers viewpoint.
Tolerance for other peoples ideas and the freedom to express your own are
inseparable values. Joined, they form a sacred trust that holds the basis of our
democratic society. But that trust is perpetually vulnerable to the tyrannical
tendencies of monarchs, mobs and majorities. And lately, we have seen those
tendencies manifest themselves too often, both on college campuses and in
our society.
I think both Harvard and my own city of New York have been witnesses to this
trend.
First, New York City. Several years ago, as you may remember, some people
tried to stop the development of a mosque a few blocks from the World Trade
Center site. It was an emotional issue, and polls showed that two-thirds of
Americans were against a mosque being built there. Even the AntiDefamation League -- widely regarded as the countrys most ardent defender
of religious freedom -- declared its opposition to the project.
The opponents held rallies and demonstrations. They denounced the
developers. And they demanded that city government stop its construction.
That was their right -- and we protected their right to protest. But we refused
to cave in to their demands.
The idea that government would single out a particular religion and block its
believers -- and only its believers -- from building a house of worship in a
particular area is diametrically opposed to the moral principles that gave rise
to our nation and the constitutional protections that have sustained it.
Our union of 50 states rests on the union of two values: freedom and
tolerance. And it is that union of values that the terrorists who attacked us
found most threatening. To them, we were a God-less country. In fact, there is
no country that protects the core of every faith and philosophy -- free will -more than the United States.
That protection, however, rests upon our constant vigilance.

It is up to us to ensure that equality under the law means equality under the
law for everyone. If you want the freedom to worship as you wish, to speak as
you wish and to marry whom you wish, you must tolerate my freedom to do
so -- or not do so -- as well. You may find my actions immoral or unjust, but
attempting to restrict my freedoms, in ways that you would not restrict your
own, leads only to injustice.
Throughout history, those in authority have tried to repress ideas that
threaten their power, their religion, their ideology or their re-election chances.
That was true for Socrates and Galileo; it was true for Nelson Mandela and
Vaclav Havel; and it has been true for Ai Weiwei, Pussy Riot and the kids who
made the Happy video in Iran.
We cannot deny others the rights and privileges that we demand for
ourselves; that is true in cities, and it is no less true at universities, where the
forces of repression appear to be stronger now than they have been since the
1950s.
There is an idea floating around college campuses -- including here at Harvard
-- that scholars should be funded only if their work conforms to a particular
view of justice. Theres a word for that idea: censorship. And it is just a
modern-day form of McCarthyism.
In the 1950s, the right wing was attempting to repress left-wing ideas. Today,
on many campuses, it is liberals trying to repress conservative ideas, even as
conservative faculty members are at risk of becoming an endangered species.
Perhaps nowhere is that more true than here in the Ivy League. In the 2012
presidential race, 96 percent of all campaign contributions from Ivy League
faculty and employees went to Barack Obama. That statistic, drawn from
Federal Election Commission data, should give us pause -- and I say that as
someone who endorsed President Obama. When 96 percent of faculty donors
prefer one candidate to another, you have to wonder whether students are
being exposed to the diversity of views that a university should offer.
Diversity of gender, ethnicity and orientation is important. But a university
cannot be great if its faculty is politically homogenous.
In fact, the whole purpose of granting tenure to professors is to ensure that
they feel free to conduct research on ideas that run afoul of university politics
and societal norms. When tenure was created, it mostly protected liberals
whose ideas ran up against conservative norms.

Today, if tenure is going to continue to exist, it must also protect

conservatives whose ideas run up against liberal norms. Otherwise, university
research will lose credibility. A liberal arts education must not be an education
in the art of liberalism.
This spring, it has been disturbing to see a number of college
commencement speakers withdraw, or have their invitations rescinded, after
protests from students and -- to me, shockingly -- from senior faculty and
administrators who should know better.
It happened at Brandeis, Haverford, Rutgers and Smith. Last year, it
happened at Swarthmore and Johns Hopkins. In each case, liberals silenced a
voice and denied an honorary degree to individuals they deemed politically
objectionable.
As a former chairman of Johns Hopkins, I believe that a universitys obligation
is not to teach students what to think, but to teach students how to think. And
that requires listening to the other side, weighing arguments without
prejudging them, and determining whether the other side might actually
make some fair points.
If the faculty fails to do this, then it is the responsibility of the administration
and governing body to step in and make it a priority. If they do not, if students
graduate with ears and minds closed, the university has failed both the
student and society. If you want to know where that leads, look no further
than Washington.
In Washington, every major question facing our country is decided. Yet the
two parties decide these questions not by engaging with one another, but by
trying to shout each other down, and by trying to repress and undermine
research that runs counter to their ideology. The more our universities
emulate that model, the worse off we will be as a society.
An example: For decades, Congress has barred the Centers for Disease
Control from conducting studies of gun violence, and recently Congress also
placed that prohibition on the National Institutes of Health.
This year, the Senate has delayed a vote on President Obamas nominee
for surgeon general -- Vivek Murthy, a Harvard physician -- because he had
the audacity to say that gun violence is a public health crisis that should be
tackled.

Lets get serious: When 86 Americans are killed with guns every day, and
shootings regularly occur at our schools and universities, including last weeks
tragedy in Santa Barbara, California, it would be almost medical malpractice
to say anything else.
But in politics -- as it is on too many college campuses -- people dont listen to
facts that run counter to their ideology. They fear them. And nothing is more
frightening to them than scientific evidence.
Earlier this year, the state of South Carolina adopted new science standards
for its public schools -- but the state legislature blocked any mention of
natural selection. It was kind of like teaching economics without mentioning
supply and demand.
Just as members of Congress fear data that undermines their ideological
beliefs, these state legislators fear scientific evidence that undermines their
religious beliefs. And if you want proof of that, consider this:
An 8-year-old girl in South Carolina wrote to members of the state legislature
urging them to make the woolly mammoth the official state fossil.
The legislators thought it was a great idea, because a woolly mammoth fossil
was found in the state in 1725. But the state Senate passed a bill defining the
woolly mammoth as having been created on the sixth day with the other
beasts of the field.
Unfortunately, the same elected officials who put ideology and religion over
data and science when it comes to guns and evolution are often the most
unwilling to accept the scientific data on climate change.
Now, dont get me wrong: Scientific skepticism is healthy. But there is a world
of difference between scientific skepticism that seeks out more evidence and
ideological stubbornness that shuts it out.
Given the general attitude of many elected officials toward science education,
its no wonder that the federal government has abdicated its responsibility to
invest in scientific research, much of which occurs at our universities.
Today, federal spending on research and development as a percentage of
gross domestic product is lower than it has been in more than 50 years, which
is allowing the rest of the world to catch up -- and even surpass -- the U.S. in
scientific research.
We can't risk becoming a country that turns its back on science, or on each
other. And you graduates must help lead the way.

On every issue, we must follow the evidence where it leads and listen to
people where they are. If we do that, there is no gridlock we cannot break, no
compromise we cannot broker, no problem we cannot solve.