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Argonne scientists have used isoporous membranes -- membranes with pores of equal size and shape -- and recirculation to create separations at the nanoscale that overcome previous limitations.

Since it began operating in 2022, the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) has revealed some surprising things about the Universe. The latest came when a team of researchers used Webb‘s Mid-Infrared Instrument (MIRI) to observe Rho Ophiuchi, the closest star-forming nebula to Earth, about 400 light-years away. While at least five telescopes have studied the region since the 1970s, Webb’s unprecedented resolution and specialized instruments revealed what was happening at the heart of this nebula.

For starters, while observing what was thought to be a single star (WL 20S), the team realized they were observing a pair of young stars that formed 2 to 4 million years ago. The MIRI data also revealed that the twin stars have matching jets of hot gas (aka stellar jets) emanating from their north and south poles into space. The discovery was presented at the 244th meeting of the American Astronomical Society (224 AAS) on June 12th. Thanks to additional observations made by the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA), the team was surprised to notice large clouds of dust and gas encircling both stars.

Given the twins’ age, the team concluded that these may be circumstellar disks gradually forming a system of planets. This makes WL 20S a valuable find for astronomers, allowing them to watch a solar system take shape. As noted, the Rho Ophiuchi nebula has been studied for decades by infrared telescopes, including the Spitzer Space Telescope and the Wide-field Infrared Explorer (WISE), the Infrared Telescope Facility (IRTF) at the Mauna Kea Observatory, the Hale 5.0-meter telescope the Palomar Observatory, and the Keck II telescope.

This WL 20 star group image combines data from the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array and the Mid-Infrared Instrument on NASA’s Webb telescope. Credit: NSF/NRAO/NASA/JPL-Caltech/B. Saxton

Infrared astronomy is necessary when studying particularly dusty nebulae since the clouds of dust and gas obscure most of the visible light of the stars within them. Thanks to its advanced infrared optics, Webb was able to detect slightly longer wavelengths using its MIRI instrument. Mary Barsony, an astronomer with the Carl Sagan Center for the Study of Life in the Universe (part of the SETI Institute), was the lead author of a new paper that describes the results. As she related in a recent NASA press statement.

“Our jaws dropped. After studying this source for decades, we thought we knew it pretty well. But we would not have known this was two stars or that these jets existed without MIRI. That’s really astonishing. It’s like having brand new eyes.”

Radio telescopes are another way to study nebulae, though they are not guaranteed to reveal the same features as infrared instruments. In the case of WL 20S, the absorbed light was visible in the submillimeter range, making ALMA the ideal choice for follow-up observations. However, the high-resolution mid-infrared data was needed to discern WL 20S as a pair of stars with individual accretion disks. This allowed the team to resolve stellar jets composed of ionized gas that is not visible at submillimeter wavelengths.

“The power of these two telescopes together is really incredible. If we hadn’t seen that these were two stars, the ALMA results might have just looked like a single disk with a gap in the middle. Instead, we have new data about two stars that are clearly at a critical point in their lives, when the processes that formed them are petering out.”

The combined MIRI and ALMA results revealed that the twin stars are nearing the end of their formation period and may already have a system of planets. Future observations of these stars with Webb and other telescopes will enable astronomers to learn more about how young stars transition from formation to their main sequence phase. “It’s amazing that this region still has so much to teach us about the life cycle of stars,” said Ressler. “I’m thrilled to see what else Webb will reveal.”

Further Reading: NASA

The post Matched Twin Stars are Firing Their Jets Into Space Together appeared first on Universe Today.

Space debris is a major problem for space exploration. There are millions of pieces up there in orbit from flecks of paint to defunct satellites. It is a known challenge to space exploration creating a shell of uncontrolled debris which could cause damage to orbiting craft or astronauts. A team at Astroscale have a spacecraft in orbit whose singular purpose has been to rendezvous with a defunct Japanese upper-stage rocket module. On arrival it is to survey the debris to test approach and survey techniques to ultimately inform how we can remove them from orbit.

Space debris, or space junk, is exactly what it says; pieces of human made objects orbiting Earth that are no longer required. It’s not just unwanted items though, many pieces are the result of collisions and at speeds in excess of 28,000 kilometres per hour they pose a real threat to astronauts and operational spacecraft in low earth orbit.

Taking a bleak view, NASA scientists Donald Kessler proposed a scenario where the shear volume of debris is high enough that collisions could cascade into a chain reaction. The chain reaction of collisions could ultimately lead to an exponential growth in debris and even cut off our access to space. It may seem a pessimistic view but some computer modelling of the scenario does give strong indications that this may be the case if we don’t act now.

A map of space debris orbiting Earth. Credit: European Space Agency

There have been numerous, almost fanciful ideas proposed from great big balloons covered in sticky stuff like giant fly paper in orbit to pickup bits and bobs floating around. Nets have also been proposed even lasers to piece by piece destroy the offending objects. If I were a betting man I would go for something along the lines of a net travelling through space at similar velocity, scooping up the debris and controlling its gentle deorbit until either landed safely for collection or burnt up in the atmosphere. 

The ideas are there, what we are lacking, is data to assess their feasibility. Enter Astroscale, a company that was founded in 2013 and develops in-orbit solutions. They have been selected by the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency – JAXA – for the first phase of Commercial Removal of Debris Demonstration. The purpose to demonstrate how the technology for removing large pieces of debris. This has led to the development of ADRAS-J (Active Debris Removal by Astroscale-Japan.)

ADRAS-J was launched on 18 February and started its rendezvous phase four days later. On 9 April it began its approach from a few hundred kilometres and from 16 April it began its automated relative navigation approach taking it to within a few hundred metres using the onboard infrared camera. On 23 May it approached to 50 metres, a first for any spacecraft to arrive in such proximity to a large piece of debris. 

The item is the upper stage of a Japanese rocket that measures 11 metres long and 4 metres in diameter. Now the two are so close, ADRAS-J will demonstrate proximity operations and collect images of the rocket to assess its movements. This is a particularly interesting object for ADRAS-J to study becausey it has no technology or infrastructure to enable docking or servicing so is a challenging piece of debris to remove.

Source : Historic Approach to Space Debris: Astroscale’s ADRAS-J Closes in by 50 Meters

The post Astroscale Closes Within 50 Meters of its Space Junk Target appeared first on Universe Today.

It has long been thought that young stars forming near each other will be aligned in terms of their rotation, and observations from the James Webb Space Telescope have offered confirmation

Supermassive black holes pose unanswered questions for astronomers around the world, not least 'How do they grow so big?' Now, an international team of astronomers has discovered a powerful rotating, magnetic wind that they believe is helping a galaxy's central supermassive black hole to grow. The swirling wind, revealed with the help of the ALMA telescope in nearby galaxy ESO320-G030, suggests that similar processes are involved both in black hole growth and the birth of stars.

The impacts of climate change are being felt all over the world, but how will it impact how your hometown feels? An interactive web application allows users to search 40,581 places and 5,323 metro areas around the globe to match the expected future climate in each city with the current climate of another location, providing a relatable picture of what is likely in store.

Scientists have prototyped a new method for 'rationally engineering' enzymes to deliver improved performance. They have devised an algorithm, which takes into account an enzyme's evolutionary history, to flag where mutations could be introduced with a high likelihood of delivering functional improvements. Their work could have significant, wide-ranging impacts across a suite of industries, from food production to human health.

A wearable health monitor can reliably measure levels of important biochemicals in sweat during physical exercise. The 3D-printed monitor could someday provide a simple and non-invasive way to track health conditions and diagnose common diseases, such as diabetes, gout, kidney disease or heart disease. The monitor was able to accurately monitor the levels of volunteers' glucose, lactate and uric acid as well as the rate of sweating during exercise.

Scientists have developed a new, more energy-efficient way for AI algorithms to process data. His model may become the basis for a new generation of AI that learns like we do. Notably, these findings may also lend support to neuroscience theories surrounding memory's role in learning.

A team of researchers has developed a gel electret capable of stably retaining a large electrostatic charge. The team then combined this gel with highly flexible electrodes to create a sensor capable of perceiving low-frequency vibrations (e.g., vibrations generated by human motion) and converting them into output voltage signals. This device may potentially be used as a wearable healthcare sensor.

A team of researchers has developed a gel electret capable of stably retaining a large electrostatic charge. The team then combined this gel with highly flexible electrodes to create a sensor capable of perceiving low-frequency vibrations (e.g., vibrations generated by human motion) and converting them into output voltage signals. This device may potentially be used as a wearable healthcare sensor.

A team of scientists reports a new milestone for the sustainable production of green hydrogen through water electrolysis. Their new catalyst design harnesses so far unexplored properties of water to achieve, for the first time, an alternative to critical raw materials for water electrolysis at industrial-relevant conditions.

Chimpanzees with wounds or gut infections seem to add unusual plants to their diet, and tests show that many of these plants have antibacterial or anti-inflammatory effects

An aerial survey of Los Angeles reveals that high temperatures cause plants to emit more compounds that can contribute to harmful ozone and PM2.5 air pollution

This is probably what the demise of the Hubble Space Telescope was always going to look like: components failing one by one, with no way to replace them. In the last few months, the Hubble has repeatedly gone into safe mode as one of its remaining three gyros keeps giving faulty readings. But the Hubble and the people operating it are resilient and resourceful. The telescope is back to science operations now, though in single gyro mode.

NASA has released the first image the Hubble captured in this mode, and it’s clear that the Hubble is performing well.

This image is Hubble’s contribution to a three-telescope, multi-wavelength observing effort. The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST- infrared) and the Atacama Large Millimetre/submillimetre Array (ALMA-radio) are both involved. Hubble captured this image with its Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3.)

“Hubble’s new image of a spectacular galaxy demonstrates the full success of our new, more stable pointing mode for the telescope.”

Dr. Jennifer Wiseman, senior project scientist for Hubble, NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center

The image shows the lenticular galaxy NGC 1546, which is about 61 million light-years away in the constellation Dorado. The galaxy is oriented so that the glow from its core lights up dust lanes. The dust absorbs starlight and then emits it again at lower wavelengths, making the dust appear brown. The core is yellowish, which indicates a population of older stars. Bright blue regions peeking out from the dust lanes are where active star formation is taking place. Background galaxies are also visible, including an edge-on view of a reddish spiral galaxy on the left.

The Hubble started its mission with six gyros, which help the telescope point itself at chosen targets. There are now only three left, and one of them is repeatedly causing problems. NASA says the gyro is experiencing ‘saturation,’ meaning it also indicates that the Hubble is at its maximum slew rate, regardless of the actual slew rate.

But as this image shows, science operations are still continuing effectively, even though NASA says there are some minor limitations in the single gyro mode. In this mode, the telescope’s view of some regions of the sky is limited. The single gyro mode is part of the telescope’s design, just in case four or five of its six gyros fail.

It’s amazing that the space telescope can operate with a single gyro. It can capture the light from objects billions of light years away while travelling at about 27,000 km/hour (17,000 mp/h). All the while, it keeps its pinpoint gaze steady. NASA describes it as keeping a laser shining on a dime over 320 km (200) miles away. The telescope requires long exposure times; sometimes, it focuses on a single time for 24 hours.

This is Hubble’s second set of six gyros. They were all replaced during a 2009 servicing mission.

In this image, astronaut Mike Massimino works to remove and replace Hubble’s Rate Sensor Units, which contain the telescope’s gyroscopes, during Servicing Mission 4 in 2009. All of Hubble’s gyroscopes were replaced during the mission. Image Credit: NASA

“Hubble’s new image of a spectacular galaxy demonstrates the full success of our new, more stable pointing mode for the telescope,” said Dr. Jennifer Wiseman, senior project scientist for Hubble at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. “We’re poised now for many years of discovery ahead, and we’ll be looking at everything from our solar system to exoplanets to distant galaxies. Hubble plays a powerful role in NASA’s astronomical toolkit.”

Everything has a beginning and an end, including the Hubble. Over time, gyros and other equipment will continue to fail. Just like other aged spacecraft, like the Voyager Probes, engineers and mission staff will adapt and find new ways to keep the telescope going, probably with reduced results. But one day, the space telescope will cease functioning.

Considering all that Hubble has contributed, it will be a very sad day when the telescope shares its final image with us.

The post Here’s Hubble’s First Image in its New Pointing Mode appeared first on Universe Today.

NASA is very interested in developing a propulsion method to allow spacecraft to go faster. We’ve reported several times on different ideas to support that goal, and most of the more successful have utilized the Sun’s gravity well, typically by slingshotting around it, as is commonly done with Jupiter currently. But, there are still significant hurdles when doing so, not the least of which is the energy radiating from the Sun simply vaporizing anything that gets close enough to utilize a gravity assist. That’s the problem a project supported by NASA’s Institute for Advanced Concepts (NIAC) and run by Jason Benkoski, now of Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, is trying to solve.

The project was awarded a NIAC Phase I grant in 2022, focused on combining two separate systems – a heat shield and a thermal propellant system. According to the project’s final report, combining those two technologies could allow a spacecraft to perform what is known as an Oberth maneuver around the Sun. In this orbital mechanics trick, a spacecraft uses the Sun’s gravity well to slingshot itself at high speeds in the direction it aims. It’s similar to the Sundiver technology discussed in other articles.

So, what makes this project unique? One thing is the heat shield – Dr. Benkoski and his team developed a material that is capable of withstanding up to 2700 K. While that is still not anywhere near the temperature of the Sun’s surface, which can reach up to 5800 K, its enough to get pretty close, and thereby unlock a spacecraft’s ability to use an Oberth maneuver in the first place. 

Image of the test set-up for the thermal shield.
Credit – Benkoski et al.

Samples of the material with these thermal properties have already been produced. However, further research is needed to understand whether they’re cut out for space flight. And a heat shield alone isn’t enough to perform the maneuver – a spacecraft also must have a propulsion system that can withstand those temperatures. 

A solar thermal propulsion system could potentially do so. These systems use the Sun’s energy to pressurize their own propellant and then expel those propellants out to gain thrust, which is a necessary component of an Oberth maneuver. There are several different types of fuels that could work for such a system, and a large chunk of the research in the Phase I project looked at the different costs/benefits of each.

Hydrogen is one of the more common fuels considered for a solar thermal propulsion system. Though it is lightweight, it requires a bulky cryogenic system to store the hydrogen because it is heated to the point of being used as thrust. In the end, its trade-offs made it the least effective of the propellants considered during the project.

Graphic depicting the development path for the solar thermal propulsion system.
Credit – Benkoski et al.

Lithium hydride was the surprise winner for the fuel that allows for the fastest escape velocity. Calculations show it could result in a velocity of over 12 AU / yr. However, there are constraints with the fuel’s storage and handling.

Dr. Benkoski settled on a more mundane fuel as the overall winner of the modeling he did – methane. While it generally results in a slower final velocity than lithium hydride, its final speed is still respectable at over 10 AU / yr. It also eliminates many storage hassles of other propellants, such as the cryogenics required to store hydrogen.

There are some drawbacks, though – the calculated maximum speed is only about 1.7 times faster than what could already be done with a gravitational assist from Jupiter, which wouldn’t require all the fancy thermal shielding. There are other downsides to that, though, such as the direction the spacecraft can travel in being limited by where Jupiter is in relation to other objects of interest. Orbiting the Sun, on the other hand, it is possible to reach pretty much anywhere in the solar system and beyond with the right controlled burn.

As Dr. Benkoski notes in the final report, he made plenty of assumptions when doing his modeling calculations, including that the system would only be able to use already-developed technologies rather than speculative ones that could dramatically impact the results. For now, it doesn’t seem NASA has selected this project to move on to Phase II, and it’s unclear what future work is planned for further development. If nothing else, it is a step toward understanding what would be necessary to truly send spacecraft past the Sun and into deep space at a speed much faster than anything else has gone before. Given NASA’s continual attention to this topic, undoubtedly, someday, one of the missions will succeed in doing so.

Learn More:
Benkoski et al – Combined Heat Shield and Solar Thermal Propulsion System for an Oberth Maneuver
UT – Tiny Spacecraft Using Solar Sails Open Up a Solar System of Opportunity
UT – Want the Fastest Solar Sail? Drop it Into the Sun First
UT – A Mission to Reach the Solar Gravitational Lens in 30 Years

Lead Image:
Graphic of a solar thermal propulsion system undergoing a Oberth maneuver around the Sun.
Credit – Jason Benkoski

The post Slingshotting Around the Sun Would Make a Spacecraft the Faster Ever appeared first on Universe Today.

Reducing the size of the microphone in electronic devices would allow manufacturers to include more of them, increasing the capability for noise cancellation

Surely many readers know of the Cass Review, a 2020 report (a final version came out this year) on the treatment of gender dysphoria in Britain. Headed by Hilary Cass, a retired pediatrician and former president of the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health, the report summarized the methods and results of the National Health Service’s (NHS’s) treatment of gender-dysphoric youths. It also commissioned several independent studies of that treatment. The results were damning for the NHS, whose treatment was shown to lack evidential underpinnings. The effects of widely used puberty blockers and other hormones, for example were not known well enough to be prescribed, and “affirmative” psychosocial therapy was not shown to be efficacious.

As Wikipedia notes, the report had several effects, effectively stopping or slowing “affirmative therapy” in Britain. The most important result was the closing of the Tavistock Gender Centre, the only place in the UK that would treat gender-dysphoric children and adolescents, and in a strongly “affirmative” way. Its functions were farmed out to several other places that will be much less “affirmative” in the sense of not using only merely therapeutic assessments followed by immediate dosage with hormones. And puberty blockers, as in some other European countries, will now be regarded as part of clinical trials instead of as routine care, for we really don’t know the long-term effect of such blockers.  What we do know is that a majority of gender-dysphoric children, if left medically untreated, will resolve their issues without hormones or surgery, often coming out as bisexual or gay.

NHS England responded positively to the interim and final reports. As of April 2024 they have implemented a number of measures. The Gender Identity Development Service (GIDS) at the Tavistock and Portman NHS Foundation Trust closed in March 2024. Two new services, located in the north west of England and in London, opened in April 2024, which are intended to be the first of up to eight regional services.  These will follow a new service specification for the “assessment, diagnosis and treatment of children and young people presenting with gender incongruence”. Puberty suppressing hormones are no longer routinely available in NHS youth gender services. New patients that have been assessed as possibly benefiting from them will be required to participate in a clinical trial that is being set up by the National Institute for Health and Care Research. A new board, chaired by Simon Wessely will encourage further research in the areas highlighted in the review as having a weak evidence base.

The report didn’t show that such interventions definitely weren’t useful; rather, it showed that the evidence for their usefulness was inconclusive. In that light, it seems judicious to slow down, provide assessment therapy rather than “affirmative” therapy, and dial back the use of hormones in young people. (My own view is that hormone or surgical intervention should occur only when youths are considered to be mature enough to make important decisions about their lives; perhaps 18?).

There’s a new article in the reputable British Medical Journal detailing how American gender activists, wedded to “affirmative therapy,” have largely ignored the Cass report. The intentions of such activists—to somehow “fix” gender dysphoria—are well-meant, but these activists are deeply afflicted with a resistance to new data that don’t support their ideas. The Cass Report, therefore, had to be ignored because it might make them change their minds—and their practice.

Click to read:

A few excerpts, showing that some Americans do agree with Cass’s conslusions about inconclusive data:

The American Academy of Paediatrics (AAP) and the Endocrine Society have stood by their guidelines. The Cass review “does not contain any new research that would contradict” them, the Endocrine Society said in a statement  WPATH [World Professional Association for Transgender Health] issued an email statement that Cass “is rooted in the false premise that non-medical alternatives to care will result in less adolescent distress,” and added on 17 May that its own guidelines were “based on far more systematic reviews [than] the Cass review. As The BMJ reported last year   WPATH’s own systematic review, one of an unknown number commissioned for the eighth version of its Standards of Care—just two were published—concluded that the strength of the evidence to support the mental health benefits of hormones was “low” and that it was “impossible” to conclude how they affect suicide risk.

Under pressure from some members, the AAP announced last year that it would commission an independent systematic review of the evidence for the affirmative model—at the same time that it reconfirmed its 2018 statement in support.7The BMJ obtained a new resolution dated 1 April that asks the organisation to “issue an interim update to the 2018 policy statement based on the best available evidence to date.”

“The time has passed for yet another systematic review,” says Julia Mason, an Oregon paediatrician and member of SEGM who has submitted several resolutions, including the April 2024 one, to AAP for more evidence based guidance. “We now have a dozen high quality reviews (eight Cass, two NICE, one Swedish, one German) all pointing to significant issues with the purely affirmative model of care,” she says. “Parents and their children are being misled in clinics all over the country. There is no evidence that giving puberty blockers followed by hormones and surgery is lifesaving care, and there is mounting evidence that the harms might outweigh the advantages.” The AAP did not respond to The BMJ’s request for comment.

The American Psychological Association, American Psychiatric Association, and American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, which have position statements in support of the affirmative model, have remained silent about Cass. Only the psychology group responded to The BMJ, saying that it is studying the Cass report, but “we stand by the statement.”

. . . But many outlets historically aligned with advocacy positions have held back on any ink. STAT News, which “delivers trusted and authoritative journalism about health, medicine, and the life sciences,” has so far ignored Cass (as well as The BMJ’s request for comment). So has CNN. Jesse Singal, one of the first American journalists to expose the potential harms of youth gender treatment, reported on his Substack that the legacy news network had recycled the pronouncement that “gender affirming care is medically necessary, evidence based care” in 35 separate articles over the past two years, practically verbatim. (CNN did not explain, and did not respond to a query from The BMJ.) “Many outlets dug themselves into a deep hole on this issue by simply acting as stenographers and megaphones for activist groups rather than doing their jobs,” wrote Singal.

There are other descriptions of how American gender activists have deliberately ignored the Cass Report, but I can’t resist putting up what the BMJ says about my least favorite popular scientific magazine, one that’s been resolutely rah-rah for “affirmative care” over the years:

Singal has also called out Scientific American for not covering the Cass report, while on 20 April running a question and answer piece with a prominent advocate of gender affirming care titled “Anti-trans efforts use misinformation, epistemological violence, and gender essentialism.” The oldest continuously published magazine in the US, Scientific American, has run several articles favourable to the affirmative model in recent years. In “Why anti-trans laws are anti-science,” written in 2021 and republished in 2023, the magazine’s editors stated that it is “unscientific and cruel” to claim that treatments are “unproven and dangerous” or that “legislation is necessary to protect children.” According to a 2022 article, “What the science on gender affirming care for transgender kids really shows,” data “consistently show that access to gender affirming care is associated with better mental health outcomes.” “Decades of data support the use and safety of puberty pausing medications,” declared one 2023 piece.

The magazine’s editor in chief, Laura Helmuth, has promoted these pieces on Twitter/X with declarations like, “The research is clear, and all the relevant medical organisations agree”; policies that restrict treatments are “dangerous, cruel, bigoted, and contrary to all the best scientific and medical evidence.” She’s also disparaged inquiries on the subject. In a February 2023 tweet, Helmuth included gender affirming care among a list of “things we don’t need to be both-sidesing, be ‘objective,’ or be ‘just asking questions!’ about.” Neither Helmuth nor the magazine’s publisher, Springer Nature, responded to a detailed email referencing the articles and more than 15 tweets.

I predict that in years to come both doctors and the public will look back on “affirmative therapy” as a maladaptive blip in scientific medicine: a practice that went full steam ahead propelled by ideology rather than science. I am not, of course, disagreeing that some gender-dysphoric youths can be helped by surgery and medicine, for many trans people have affirmed that transitioning improved their lives. But some success stories don’t mean that affirmative therapy leading to hormone treatment and perhaps surgery is the best treatment for everyone who’s uncomfortable with their gender.

 

Researchers have confirmed a centuries-old rumour that leeches can jump, which they may do to land their next blood meal

Just when you thought the turmoil at Harvard was over, its briquettes have ignited again, thanks to a big squirt of lighter fluid from Harvard’s Dean of Social Science, Larry Bobo.  Last week, Bobo posted a deeply misguided editorial in the Harvard Crimson, which you can see by clicking the title below. What he calls for is in-house censorship of Harvard faculty, and even sanctions applied to those who nevertheless adhere to First-Amendment-permitted free speech:

Click to read:

Apparently the target at which Bobo’s editorial is aimed is ex-President Larry Summers, who criticized Claudine Gay’s response to the October 7 butchery of Hamas as well as the University’s hamhandedness in dealing with antisemitism. But then Bobo goes on to say that faculty should be muzzled in general, so long as what they say could, down the line, cause “trouble”.

I’ll give a substantial excerpt of Bobo’s screed because it violates canons of academic freedom, academic neutrality, and simple common sense.

Having witnessed the appallingly rough manner in which prominent affiliates, including one former University president, publicly denounced Harvard’s students and present leadership, this first question must be answered: Is it outside the bounds of acceptable professional conduct for a faculty member to excoriate University leadership, faculty, staff, or students with the intent to arouse external intervention into University business? And does the broad publication of such views cross a line into sanctionable violations of professional conduct?

Yes it is and yes it does.

Note that Bobo says that the faculty behavior is “sanctionable”, i.e., faculty could be punished for free speech—for criticizing the University. As for “the intent to arouse external intervention into University business,” that’s both hard to determine and, at any rate, remains free speech. It’s as if professors or other deans cannot bring to the attention of the public bad stuff going on at Harvard.  One possible example is donor Bill Ackman pulling his gifts to Harvard during and after the Claudine Gay affair. That was bad for Harvard, but faculty who publicized Gay’s missteps, which included plagiarism, should certainly NOT be punished.

And remember that, as Dean, Bobo has the ability to affect people’s tenure, promotions, and salaries within his division, as one professor critical of his stand has noted (see below).

Here’s Bobo evincing ignorance of the First Amendment, which Harvard is supposed to adhere to:

Vigorous debate is to be expected and encouraged at any University interested in promoting freedom of expression. But here is the rub: As the events of the past year evidence, sharply critical speech from faculty, prominent ones especially, can attract outside attention that directly impedes the University’s function.

A faculty member’s right to free speech does not amount to a blank check to engage in behaviors that plainly incite external actors — be it the media, alumni, donors, federal agencies, or the government — to intervene in Harvard’s affairs. Along with freedom of expression and the protection of tenure comes a responsibility to exercise good professional judgment and to refrain from conscious action that would seriously harm the University and its independence.

The response to these assertions is simply, “yes: so long as a faculty member’s speech is not prohibited by the First Amendment (and “inciting external actors to intervene in Harvard’s affairs does not count), faculty do have a blank check. Speech prohibited by the First Amendment includes incitement of imminent and predictable violence (no Harvard faculty have done that), and things like defamation, false advertising, harassment, and so on. Absent those kinds of speech, yes, Harvard faculty can say what they want. Bobo needs to understand the First Amendment. He shows further ignorance of the law in this paragraph:

But many faculty at Harvard enjoy an external stature that also opens to them much broader platforms for potential advocacy. Figures such as Raj Chetty ’00, Henry Louis Gates Jr., Jill Lepore, or Steven A. Pinker have well-earned notoriety that reaches far beyond the academy.

Would it simply be an ordinary act of free speech for those faculty to repeatedly denounce the University, its students, fellow faculty, or leadership? The truth is that free speech has limits — it’s why you can’t escape sanction for shouting “fire” in a crowded theater.

Note that Gates, Lepore, Pinker et al. are said to have “well-earned notoriety”—an interesting choice of words! Why not “renown”?

But the “shouting fire in a crowded theater” phrase, which, when used as a ruse, was construed as speech creating immediate and predictable panic and violence, came from a  1919 Supreme Court decision by Oliver Wendell Holmes—in a case in which a man was indicted for urging others to avoid the draft.  In fact, the anti-draft speech, held unlawful by the Court, was partly overturned 5 decades later precisely because it wasn’t “directed to inciting or producing imminent lawless action and [wasn’t] likely to incite or produce such action”

None of Harvard faculty speech, then, violated free speech, though Bobo added one other area in which faculty should shut up:

Following similar logic: Is it acceptable professional conduct for a faculty member to encourage civil disobedience on the part of students that violates University policies? Faculty advocacy for actions clearly identified as in violation of student conduct rules is extremely problematic. Doing so after students have received official notification of a potential serious infraction is not acceptable. Such behavior should have sanctionable limits as well.

. . .Modern student protest appears less and less likely to target major non-University events, businesses, or government bodies. Rather, they’re comfortably situated in the confines of college campuses, directing demands for change at university administrators and boards of directors.

While this certainly draws in media attention, it is flawed. Targeting protest at those charged with a pastoral duty of care for their students and an indirect-at-best relation to the protesters’ core grievance considerably removes these efforts from the inarguably heroic actions of college students who burned draft cards in protest of the Vietnam War, registered black voters in Mississippi or Alabama, sat in at segregated lunch counters, or joined marches for women’s liberation and gay rights.

Even this commitment to instruct students on protest, however, is not without justifiable limits. If we are prepared to sanction our students for a line of action contrary to our codes of conduct, then I believe professors or administrators who encourage and advocate for such actions should also face parallel consequences.

I disagree, as do many others.  Encampments (that’s surely what Bobo’s talking about here) are violations of Harvard’s policies, and some faculty did encourage students in their desire to encamp. But that is simply calling for civil disobedience, not calling for violence and the like.  If faculty promoting encampments is illegal speech, then so were the calls by civil rights leaders for illegal sit-ins, voter registration, and marches.  (Note, “lawless action” implies violence, not “peaceful disobedience of the law”.) I disagree with the politics behind encampments, of course, but I certainly wouldn’t sanction faculty for encouraging that behavior. Such speech may have been unwise, but it was neither illegal nor a violation of Harvard’s speech policy.

Remember, encouraging civil disobedience is legal, while civil disobedience itself is by definition illegal.  As for whether disobedience like encamping is “heroic”, that’s a matter for history to judge, not Harvard.

One more thing: Bobo didn’t emphasize that he was speaking personally rather than as a Dean of the College; in other words, he was not limning official policy. (He later clarified that he spoke personally.) Thus his first op-ed is a violation of institutional neutrality that was likely to chill the speech of people in the social sciences and keep them from criticizing him. In fact, someone of Bobo’s position is best off muzzling himself because the line between personal speech and official speech from administrators is unclear. Even now that he’s clarified that he was speaking as an individual, what faculty member in the social science wouldn’t feel inhibited from encouraging students to commit civil disobedience, or from criticizing the administration in a way that may draw outside attention?

The pushback on Bobo has already begun.  A letter appeared in yesterday’s  Crimson authored by three members of Harvard’s faculty Council on Academic Freedom at Harvard (CAFH), and signed by ten bigwig professors (including Randall Kennedy, The Notorious Steve Pinker, Jeannie Suk Gersen, and others) showing how misguided Bobo’s piece was. Click to read:

They correct a number of Bobo’s mistakes I’ve mentioned above, but here’s an excerpt:

It is downright alarming that such a stunning argument would come from a dean who currently wields power over hundreds of professors — without indicating that he would refrain from implementing his views by punishing the faculty he oversees.

We strongly reject Dean Bobo’s arguments. He does not invoke generally agreed-upon exceptions to the right to free speech, such as inherently verbal crimes like libel, or justifiable restrictions on time, place, and manner. Instead, he references an analogy from former Supreme court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Class of 1861, arguing that shouting fire in a crowded theater is sanctionable.

The analogy is inapplicable for many reasons. Holmes alluded to falsely crying “fire,” whereas the speech that Dean Bobo would sanction is reasoned opinion, not known falsehood. The analogy pertains to a reflexive and predictable mob reaction; faculty opinions may be evaluated and deliberated over time. And the actual legal decision Holmes justified, which convicted people who criticized the draft during World War I, was later effectively overturned in a judgment that limited suppression of speech to incitement of “imminent lawless action.”

Analogies aside, Dean Bobo’s assertion that faculty who criticized Harvard’s leadership should be sanctioned because of an “intent to arouse external intervention” is troubling. He has no grounds for imputing such intent, nor for asserting that outside attention “impedes the University’s function.”

. . . Finally, Dean Bobo is also prepared to sanction those who encourage students to engage in civil disobedience that violates University policies. This, too, is deeply concerning. If a professor or administrator says to student protesters that their actions are legitimate civil disobedience, then such advice — whatever one thinks of its merits — is fully protected by academic freedom. Even encouraging students to break rules must be given wide leeway. Criminal law sets a high bar for charging incitement, solicitation, or aiding and abetting, precisely because of concerns for freedom of speech.

Will this letter itself incite outsiders to withhold money from or write letters about Harvard? If so, Bobo’s first op-ed would call this behavior “sanctionable”. But it isn’t.

The letter, I’m told, will soon appear with many more signers on the CAFH website.

There is a lot of criticism of Bobo’s op-ed at both liberal and conservative venues. I’ll show but two (you can access them by clicking on the headlines); one from a liberal source (the Boston Globe) and the other from a conservative cite (the Wall Street Journal editorial board). I’ll give two paragraphs from each.

One Harvard professor, who works in the social sciences, said, “The suggestion that members of an institution should be punished for criticizing that institution represents an authoritarian mindset, with no place in a university.” The professor requested anonymity to criticize “the dean who determines [my] salary, particularly when the dean is saying that deans have the right to punish faculty who criticize deans.”

In December, Bobo, along with hundreds of other faculty members, signed an open letter urging Harvard leaders “to defend the independence of the university and to resist political pressures that are at odds with Harvard’s commitment to academic freedom.”

The first paragraph shows why Bobo’s op-ed violated institutional neutrality. He’s now clarified that his statement wasn’t “official,” but it’s too late.  I don’t think the chilling effect of Bobo’s threat to punish faculty members can be overcome now that he’s shot off his big bazoo.  I seriously think he should be replaced, for there will always be the suspicion that he’s policing faculty in the social sciences.

The second paragraph is just bizarre, since what Bobo wrote urged direct violatio of academic freedom: the right of professors to engage in whatever academic research and speech that they see fit, so long as it doesn’t violate freedom of speech or University policy (again, Harvard says that it does adhere to a First-Amendment-like freedom of speech).

And the Wall Street Journal (archived here):

An excerpt:

As an institutional matter, Mr. Bobo’s position as a Harvard dean is especially problematic. Harvard President Emeritus Larry Summers notes that the call to censure faculty members’ comments on university affairs is “an obvious intrusion on academic freedom” and worse because of his position. Mr. Bobo “has authority over salaries, setting promotions and resource allocations,” Mr. Summers notes, and until his views are repudiated by university leadership, “academic freedom at Harvard will be in jeopardy.”

The Harvard faculty hasn’t so far embraced Mr. Bobo’s speech notions, and it will be useful if the gaffe encourages them to reread the University of Chicago free-speech principles over summer vacation. But Mr. Bobo’s broadside is a reminder that censors haven’t vanished from the top rungs of America’s supposedly elite universities.

Instead of soothing the turmoil at Harvard, Bobo has exacerbated it by, as the WSJ suggests, urging the Harvard professors censor themselves—or else. This is not going to bring peace at Harvard, and in fact it’s roiled the University, uniting Right and Left against the administration. (Note the plaudits to the University of Chicago.)

Given Bobo’s boo-boo, here are my three suggestions about what Harvard should do:

1.)  Get rid of Bobo as Dean. Seriously.

2.) The rest of the Harvard administration, and the deans of all the divisions, should publicly say that Bobo’s views are not University policy and that the University adheres to Constitutional freedom of speech as well as academic freedom.

3.) Most important, Harvard should adopt the five provisions laid out by The Notorious Steve Pinker in his Boston Globe editorial last December, “A five-point plan to save Harvard from itself.”  Here are two provisions that need to be formally and immediately adopted by Harvard (a short excerpt from Pinker):

Free speech. Universities should adopt a clear and conspicuous policy on academic freedom. It might start with the First Amendment, which binds public universities and which has been refined over the decades with carefully justified exceptions. These include crimes that by their very nature are committed with speech, like extortion, bribery, libel, and threats, together with incitement of imminent lawless action. It also permits restraints on the time, place, and manner of expression. The First Amendment does not entitle someone to blare propaganda from a sound truck in a residential neighborhood at 3 a.m. or to set up a soapbox in the middle of a busy freeway.

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. . . . Institutional neutrality. A university does not need a foreign policy, and it does not need to issue pronouncements on the controversies and events of the day. It is a forum for debate, not a protagonist in debates. When a university takes a public stand, it either puts words in the mouths of faculty and students who can speak for themselves or unfairly pits them against their own employer. It’s even worse when individual departments take positions, because it sets up a conflict of interest with any dissenting students and faculty whose fates they control.

During the turmoil of the last year, Harvard has lost considerable money and, more important, a lot of its reputation. The school is now the butt of jokes. It’s also subject to a federal investigation of whether it failed to stop harassment of Jewish students. Harvard’s entire position as the Best College in America depends on its academic reputation, something that has been severely undermined. Bobo helped continue the undermining. Part of the school’s academic reputation depends, of course, on academic freedom and freedom of speech: two buttresses of truth-seeking.

I used to think that NOTHING could erode Harvard’s reputation, but that doesn’t seem to be true. Applications to the school fell 5% last year as students sought other selective schools whose applications have actually increased, and applications for early admission dropped a whopping 17%,  Yes, Harvard will still be able to get its quota of highly qualified undergraduates, but with declining applications, some of the best ones will simply go elsewhere.