A troubling denial of academic freedom at the University of California, Los Angeles: ACSH trustee Dr. James Enstrom has been terminated by a secret vote of the faculty after serving for 34 years as a faculty member at the UCLA School of Public Health.
Dr. Enstrom s research has not made him exactly popular with politically correct types. In 2003, he co-authored a paper in the British Medical Journal concluding that secondhand smoke did not cause chronic disease, and lately he has been speaking outagainst pending California air-quality regulations that would devastate the state s trucking and heavy construction fleets.
They fired him because he allegedly went beyond the science of his paper, and inserted his own opinion, says ACSH s Jeff Stier. If that were the standard that the University of California system used for firing people, they d be left with no professors!
When you write politically correct stuff, everything is just fine, said Dr. Ross. When you write politically incorrect stuff, suddenly you become a rabble-rouser and a paid-off liar for industry and your job s in jeopardy. This story isn t over yet Dr. Enstrom is on UCLA s payroll until the end of the month, and we hope the university comes to its senses but if not, I am sure some other faculty will benefit from UCLA s mistake.