We write as members of the Stanford faculty who are deeply concerned by statements on COVID-19 made by fellows at the Hoover Institution.

These statements dangerously downplay the deadly nature of the disease and recommend policies that seem more aligned with driving a particular policy position than with science or fact. At a time when reputable agencies such as the Centers for Disease Control have been censored, and with information suppressed or distorted by the White House, which has also announced its intention to withdraw the United States of America from the World Health Organization [1, 2], more than ever we need objective scientific facts and data to be available to both experts and citizens so that we can fight this disease and protect ourselves and our loved ones.

The production of unbiased scientific facts is one of the most important roles of a university, and one in which Stanford has excelled--we are regarded as a trusted source of knowledge worldwide. Thus, we are profoundly troubled by this distortion of our role, and by the university’s name being used to validate such problematic information. We find this antithetical to Stanford’s commitment to serving the public good through responsible scholarship and teaching.

Let us be clear--this is not a partisan issue--it is a matter of science and facts.

The situation has become so dire that one of the pre-eminent journals of the academy has published an editorial denouncing this kind of misinformation, and its sources. H. Holden Thorp, editor of Science, writes: “a U.S. president has deliberately lied about science in a way that was imminently dangerous to human health and directly led to widespread deaths of Americans. This may be the most shameful moment in the history of U.S. science policy.” [3]

Scientific American also has stated, “The evidence and the science show that Donald Trump has badly damaged the U.S. and its people—because he rejects evidence and science…. Trump's rejection of evidence and public health measures have been catastrophic in the U.S.’ [4]

Trump has openly tried to discredit Robert Redfield, head of the CDC and has said that, contrary to what his own CDC chief says, that masks are ineffective, [5] and his Attorney General, William Barr, has likened stay-at-home measures to slavery. [6]

Our colleagues in the medical school have ably demonstrated the nature and the seriousness of unqualified opinion being set forth as fact, and insinuated into public policy. [7] In this case, they are commenting on the pronouncements of Scott Atlas, the same individual mentioned in the Science editorial. Science noted, “[Trump has] recently added to his advisory team Scott Atlas—a neuroradiologist with no expertise in epidemiology—who has advocated for a risky and misguided course.”

In August, as the death count in the US due to COVID-19 reached 155,000, Atlas made an appearance on Fox News, and stated “There should never be and there never is a goal to stop college students from getting an infection they have no problem with.’” [8]

In fact, Stanford Professor Robert Siegel—who, unlike Atlas, is an infectious disease expert—has roundly rejected Atlas’s claim: “his plan for achieving these goals is completely at odds with what is known about the epidemiology of this virus.” [9]  

In another instance of faulty or dubious information being pushed out in public from the Hoover Institution, in mid-March, Hoover Fellow Richard Epstein published an article, titled “Coronavirus Perspective,” on the Hoover’s website. [10] In it he claimed that there would likely only be 500 COVID-19 deaths in the United States. On March 24, Epstein issued a “correction”: here he claimed to have initially said 5,000, and that he now wished to revise that up to 50,000. On April 6, Epstein admitted that his estimates had been “ridiculously too low”—but still insisted that “the conventional model... seems systematically to have overpredicted the duration and severity of the current coronavirus pandemic.”  On April 21, an editor's note was appended, correcting the "correction": Epstein did not initially say 5,000; he said 500.

Like Atlas, Epstein is not qualified to make such pronouncements--he is a legal scholar with no expertise at all in epidemiology.

A closely connected concern which needs to be addressed by the Senate is our relation to an Institute that has a narrow focus and a pre-determined point of view which it is committed to retain and reinforce in all its research. This is not conjecture, it is manifested in the Hoover’s mission statement: “Both our social and economic systems are based on private enterprise from which springs initiative and ingenuity.... Ours is a system where the Federal Government should undertake no governmental, social or economic action, except where local government, or the people, cannot undertake it for themselves.” [11] This commitment to producing knowledge that constantly validates a specific belief makes the Hoover distinct and is troubling when we find Stanford linked to this kind of guided research. It is antithetical to the open scientific inquiry that drives all research universities.

In this specific case, Hoover fellows have bent their remarks to consistently emphasize economic benefits over health issues, again feeding the messaging coming from Washington: downplay COVID-19 and emphasize the damage to the economy.

For example, Hoover fellow, education scholar Eric A. Hanushek:

“Re-opening of schools is presenting new challenges. Regardless of the approach taken, the huge economic losses associated with lost learning must be addressed, and the best of the currently discussed re-opening models are insufficient to deal with the mounting learning deficits.”—Eric A. Hanushek and Ludger Woessmann, “Students have already been saddled with economic losses from school closures.” The Hill, 9/10/20. [12]
 
These opinions disseminated as facts produced at Stanford can have serious and in fact deadly effects on masses of people, and this strongly suggests that the relationship between the Hoover Institution’s way of promoting their policy preferences and the academic mission of Stanford University requires more careful renegotiation.

We ask for the Academic Senate of the University to take up that task, and for the administration to help develop solutions with those discussions in mind.

 
Notes:

[1] https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/hospitals-told-send-coronavirus-data-washington-not-cdc-n1233861 

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/12/us/politics/trump-coronavirus-politics-cdc.html?referringSource=articleShare

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/sep/12/donald-trump-michael-caputo-cdc-covid-reports-politico-deep-state

https://www.politico.com/news/2020/09/11/exclusive-trump-officials-interfered-with-cdc-reports-on-covid-19-412809

[2] https://www.cnn.com/2020/07/07/politics/us-withdrawing-world-health-organization/index.html

[3] https://science.sciencemag.org/content/early/2020/09/11/science.abe7391?rss=1

[4] https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/scientific-american-endorses-joe-biden/

[5] https://www.npr.org/sections/coronavirus-live-updates/2020/09/16/913560563/cdc-director-says-covid-vaccine-likely-wont-be-widely-available-until-next-year

[6] https://www.cbsnews.com/news/william-barr-coronavirus-stay-at-home-orders-black-lives-matter/

[7] https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2020-09-10/americas-response-covid-19

[8] https://www.hoover.org/research/doctor-scott-atlas-and-efficacy-lockdowns-social-distancing-and-closings

[9] https://www.sfchronicle.com/health/article/Meet-Trump-s-new-coronavirus-advisor-Stanford-15485474.php

[10] https://www.hoover.org/research/coronavirus-pandemic

[11] https://www.hoover.org/about/missionhistory

[12] https://thehill.com/opinion/education/515769-students-have-already-been-saddled-with-economic-losses-from-school


Signed,

David Palumbo-Liu, Louise Hewlett Nixon Professor and Professor of Comparative Literature
Cécile Alduy, Professor, French Literature and Culture
Jeffrey Koseff, William Alden and Martha Campbell Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering
Tom Mullaney, Professor of History
Elaine Treharne Professor of Humanities and English
Jonathan Rosa Associate Professor of Education and, by courtesy, Anthropology and Linguistics
Rush Rehm Professor, Classics and TAPS
Patricia Alessandrini Assistant Professor, Department of Music, CCRMA
Jody Maxmin Associate Professor, Art & Art History and Classics
Stephen Stedman Senior Fellow, Freeman Spogli Institute
Todd Davies, Lecturer, Symbolic System Program
Pavle Levi Osgood Hooker Professor of Fine Arts; Film and Media Studies
Branislav Jakovljevic Professor, TAPS
Marci Kwon Assistant Professor, Art and Art History
Alexander Key Associate Professor Comparative Literature
Young Jean Lee Associate Professor, Theater and Performance Studies
Emanuele Lugli Assistant Professor, Art and Art History
Michael Rau Assistant Professor Theater and Performance Studies
Adam Tobin Senior Lecturer, Art & Art History
Shane Denson Associate Professor of Film & Media Studies and, by Courtesy, of German Studies
Allyson Hobbs Associate Professor, History
Vered  Shemtov Senior Lecturer, Department of Comparative Literature
Dmitri Petrov Professor of Biology
Jamie Meltzer Associate Professor, MFA Program in Documentary Film, Department of Art & Art History
Jan Skotheim Professor, Biology
Mikael Wolfe Assistant Professor, History
Penelope Eckert Professor of Linguistics
Mark McGurl Professor of English
Gabrielle Hecht Frank Stanton Professor of Nuclear Security, Professor of History &, by courtesy, of Anthropology
Denise Gigante Professor of English
Ban Wang William Hass Professor in Chinese Studies East Asian Languages and Cultures
Haiyan Lee Professor, Chinese & Comparative Literature
David Spiegel Jack, Lulu and Sam Willson Professor in the School of Medicine
Laura Wittman Associate Professor, French and Italian Literature and Culture
Morgan O'Neill Assistant Professor, Earth System Science
Enrique Chagoya Professor; Area Head, Art Practice; Department of Art and Art History
Scott Bukatman Professor, Art and Art History
Gail M Wight Professor, Dept. of Art & Art History
Christine Min Wotipka Associate Professor (Teaching) of Education and (by courtesy) Sociology
Elizabeth A Hadly Professor of Biology
Marc Feldman, Professor of Biology
Craig Criddle Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering
Matthew H. Sommer Professor of History
Monika Greenleaf Associate Professor Slavic Lang and Lit and Comparative Lit
Mikael Wolfe Assistant Professor, History
Indra Levy Associate Professor of Japanese & Comparative Literature
Richard Roberts Frances and Charles Field Professor of History
Sylvia Yanagisako Edward Clark Crossett Professor of Humanistic Studies and Professor of Anthropology
Sharika Thiranagama Associate Professor of Anthropology
Ali Yaycioglu Associate professor, History Department
James Ferguson Susan S. and William H. Hindle Professor and Professor of Anthropology
Michele Landis Dauber Frederick I. Richman Professor of Law
Rodolfo Dirzo Professor, Department of Biology, Woods Institute for the Environment
David Magnus Thomas A. Raffin Professor of Medicine and Biomedical Ethics and Professor of Pediatrics
Nancy Ruttenburg Professor of English
Mark Edward Lewis Kwoh-ting Li Professor of Chinese Culture, History Department
Ana Raquel Minian Associate Professor, History
James O. Leckie C.L. Peck Class of 1906 Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Emeritus
Stephen Palumbi Professor of Biology
Srdan Keca Assistant Professor, Art & Art History
Shripad Tuljapurkar Professor of Biology and Population Studies
Rob Dunbar W.M. Keck Professor of Earth Science
David Lobell Professor, Earth System Science
Jean Ma Assoc Prof Art & Art History
Camille Utterback Associate Professor of Art & Art History
Liisa Malkki Professor, Dept. of Anthropology
Priya Satia, Raymond A. Spruance Professor of International History, History
Stephen Monismith Obayashi Professor in the School of Engineering, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering
Chris Field Melvin and Joan Lane Professor for Interdisciplinary Environmental Studies
Lynn Hildemann Professor, Civil & Environmental Engineering
David Freyberg Associate Professor, Civil & Environmental Engineering
Alfred Spormann Professor, Chemical Engineering, and of Civil & Environmental Engineering
Arnetha F Ball Professor, Stanford University
Leonard Ortolano UPS Foundation Professor of Civil Engineering
Richard G. Luthy  Silas H. Palmer Professor Civil and Environmental Engineering
Alex Woloch Professor, Department of English
Gretchen C Daily, Professor of Biology
Fiorenza Micheli, David and Lucile Packard Professor of Marine Science
Kevin Arrigo, Donald & Donald M. Steel Professor in Earth, Energy, and Environmental Sciences
Anthony Barnosky Professor (Research), Biology
Daniel Lassiter Assistant Professor of Linguistics
Meghan Sumner Associate Professor, Department of Linguistics
Karla Oeler Associate Professor (Teaching) Art & Art History
Joel Beinin Donald J. McLachlan Professor of History, Emeritus
J. P. Daughton Faculty, History
Thomas Hansen Reliance-Dhirubhai Ambani Professor of Anthropology
Richard P. Martin Antony and Isabelle Raubitschek Professor in Classics
Bruce Macintosh Professor of Physics
Judith Degen Assistant Professor, Linguistics
Thomas Beischer Lecturer in Architectural History in CEE
anthony lising antonio associate professor of education
Ge Wang Associate Professor of Music and, by Courtesy, Computer Science
Rodolfo Dirzo Professor, Department of Biology
Terry A Berlier Associate Professor
Bissera Pentcheva Professor, Department of Art & Art History
Jonathan Calm Assistant Professor, Art and Art History
Jessica Riskin Professor of History
Grant Parker Associate Professor, Department of Classics
Robert Crews Professor, History Department
Laura Stokes Associate Professor of History
Kiran Khush Professor, Dept of Medicine
Zakir Durumeric Assistant Professor, Computer Science
Yuliya Ilchuk Assistant Professor
Paul N. Edwards Director, Program in Science, Technology & Society
Matthew Smith Professor, TAPS and German Studies
Estelle Freedman Robinson Professor in U.S. History
Jun Uchida Associate Professor of History
Hakeem Jefferson Assistant Professor, Political Science
Jack Baker Professor, Civil and Environmental Engineering
Daniel S Fisher David Starr Jordan Professor in Applied Physics
Paul Segall, Cecil and Ida Green Professor of Geophysics
J. Christian Gerdes Professor, Mechanical Engineering
Jennifer Wilson Clinical Associate Professor, School of Medicine
Angela Rogers Assistant Professor, Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine
Mary McDevitt Lecturer--Director, Technical Communication Program
Eric Roberts Professor emeritus, Computer Science
Hunter Fraser Associate Professor, Department of Biology
James A. Landay Professor, Computer Science
Michael Wilcox Senior Lecturer Comparative Studies in Race and Ethnicity
Matthew Kohrman Associate Professor of Anthropology and Senior Fellow by courtesy Freeman Spogli Institute
Barbara Voss Associate Professor of Anthropology
Jenny Suckale Department of Geophysics
Londa Schiebinger, John L. Hinds Professor of History of Science