Friday, January 19, 2007
Cough cough
We hate smoking. For those of you not up-to-date, some folks are whining about how tobacco companies sometimes hire university faculty to do studies, just like every other industry and interest group in the country. I hope those who were whining about Ignacio Chapela are going to come forward and defend academic freedom here, too.
UCSF tobacco industry researcher Stanton Glantz, who has long advocated for a ban, said after the meeting that he was disappointed.
"What you saw was everybody trying to avoid taking moral responsibility for a decision," he said. Yes, the moral thing to do here is to ban the tobacco companies from having the same access as everyone else to a public university.
We've seen this before, though. We saw it when San Francisco banned JROTC from its schools on the complaints of those who weren't involved and weren't harmed by it, dismissing the uncontested claims of those who were involved and greatly benefited, on the grounds that war is icky. The reasoning goes like this:
"Gee, I don't think I'd be comfortable taking money from the tobacco industry, therefore ANY TIME ANYONE EVER TAKES MONEY FROM THE TOBACCO INDUSTRY IT'S A GRAVE INJUSTICE!!!!!!!!"
Good work, guys. Way to stand up for freedom.
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