Harvard University has undoubtedly been busy covering itself in shame.

Its former president, Claudine Gay, was forced out when the magnitude of her plagiarism became known in the intense scrutiny of her career following the discovery of her callous antisemitism. Furthermore, following a probe into data falsification, a Harvard University-affiliated teaching hospital retracted or corrected dozens of papers authored by four top researchers.

More recently, a key figure in the Harvard scandal related to body parts stolen from Harvard Medical School recently received probation.

Now, Harvard University has fired one of the few epidemiologists willing to question the necessity and effectiveness of the COVID lockdowns.

Epidemiologist Martin Kulldorff, a professor of medicine at Harvard University since 2003, announced on social media Monday that he was “fired” by the university.

“I am no longer a professor of medicine at Harvard,” Kulldorff wrote in a lengthy essay in the City Journal, also posting the news on his X account. “The Harvard motto is Veritas, Latin for truth. But, as I discovered, truth can get you fired.”

Kulldorff was a prominent opponent of vaccine mandates and school closures during COVID-era debate about the regulation of schools and businesses.

I am no longer a professor of medicine at @Harvard. Here is the story of my Harvard experience until I was fired for clinging to the truth.https://t.co/zSOQlNJTY2

— Martin Kulldorff (@MartinKulldorff) March 11, 2024

Legal Insurrection readers who followed our COVID coverage are familiar with Kulldorff. In 2020, he joined Oxford University’s Professor Sunetra Gupta and Stanford’s Jay Bhattacharya to author the Great Barrington Declaration.

Called the Great Barrington Declaration, the group issued a letter saying “as infectious disease epidemiologists and public health scientists we have grave concerns about the damaging physical and mental health impacts of the prevailing COVID-19 policies, and recommend an approach we call Focused Protection.

“Those who are not vulnerable should immediately be allowed to resume life as normal. Simple hygiene measures, such as hand washing and staying home when sick should be practiced by everyone to reduce the herd immunity threshold.

Kulldorff and the others were proven entirely correct in their assessments. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recently ended all isolation requirements for COVID-19, indicating infections can be handled exactly like all the other respiratory illnesses that commonly affect humans. A study from Johns Hopkins University confirmed that lockdowns failed spectacularly to stop either the spread or resulting deaths. Another study showed that there was a devastating learning loss between K-8 students due to the pandemic lockdowns.

Kulldorff shared his experiences working to provide information and guidance on pandemic policy and vaccines. In his City Journal op-ed, he recounts his experiences of being throttled on social media because he was labeled misinformation (which Legal Insurrection covered in our Twitter Files analysis).

However, perhaps the most crucial portion of Kulldorff’s article is focused on the consequences of the ideological capture of the sciences.

…Most Harvard faculty diligently pursue truth in a wide variety of fields, but Veritas has not been the guiding principle of Harvard leaders. Nor have academic freedom, intellectual curiosity, independence from external forces, or concern for ordinary people guided their decisions.

Harvard and the wider scientific community have much work to do to deserve and regain public trust. The first steps are the restoration of academic freedom and the cancelling of cancel culture. When scientists have different takes on topics of public importance, universities should organize open and civilized debates to pursue the truth. Harvard could have done that—and it still can, if it chooses.

Almost everyone now realizes that school closures and other lockdowns, were a colossal mistake. Francis Collins has acknowledged his error of singularly focusing on Covid without considering collateral damage to education and non-Covid health outcomes. That’s the honest thing to do, and I hope this honesty will reach Harvard. The public deserves it, and academia needs it to restore its credibility.

Science cannot survive in a society that does not value truth and strive to discover it. The scientific community will gradually lose public support and slowly disintegrate in such a culture. The pursuit of truth requires academic freedom with open, passionate, and civilized scientific discourse, with zero tolerance for slander, bullying, or cancellation. My hope is that someday, Harvard will find its way back to academic freedom and independence.

As I noted previously, trust in science is already collapsing (a large part of it) due to how the COVID pandemic was handled by “experts.” Hopefully, another institution will find a place for Kulldorff and his science.

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