In an unprecedented joint statement, the presidents of Harvard, Stanford, and MIT have condemned the National Association of Scholars’ “Shifting Sands” report as a “reckless assault on academic freedom” that threatens to undermine their scientific leadership.
“These so-called ‘reforms’ would devastate our ability to conduct research critical to supporting our budgets,” declared Harvard President Alan Garber at a hastily convened press conference in Cambridge. “Requiring preregistration of hypotheses? Making our data publicly available? This isn’t transparency—it’s empirical terrorism.”
MIT President Sally Kornbluth warned that mandatory p-value plotting could “stifle innovation” by forcing researchers to actually prove their claims before publication. “Science advances by leveraging prestige, issuing press releases, and making dire predictions of calamity that frighten the public. Not through tedious statistical nitpicking,” she insisted, flanked by banners reading “Trust the Experts™.”
Stanford President Jonathan Levin expressed particular concern about reforms that could jeopardize the universities’ lucrative indirect cost arrangements. “Our social justice initiatives and rebranded diversity programs depend on the flexibility of current research funding structures,” he explained. “When we receive a $1 million grant to study the impact of climate change on neurodivergent indigenous transmen, the additional $540,000 in overhead costs enables us to fund core programs like unconscious bias training and LGBTQ inclusion.”
The three institutions have launched a $50 million campaign—funded through research overhead accounts—to combat what they term “statistical colonialism.” Their joint manifesto argues that demanding reproducible results represents “an outdated, patriarchal approach to knowledge creation that privileges Western mathematical constructs over diverse ways of knowing.”
The universities have retained top lobbying firms like Ballard Partners, Akin Grump, and the S-3 Group to press their case in Washington, launching astroturf alumni support campaigns to ensure that Congress understands the grave threat to the status quo posed by requiring scientists to only publish reproducible research.