Editor’s Note: Below is the keynote address of Dr. Scott Atlas at the Chicago Thinker’s 2026 American Identity Summit. Dr. Scott Atlas MD is an American radiologist, health policy scholar, and senior fellow at the Hoover Institution affiliated with Stanford University. Atlas served as a Special Advisor to President Trump and was a member of the White House Coronavirus Task Force in 2020.

Good morning! It’s great to be here at my training ground, my medical school alma mater, the University of Chicago—the highlight of my academic background. It’s great to be here among many friends and colleagues and to see the students here to talk about reforming higher education. The Thinker has some of the boldest students who are committed to freedom, regardless of pressure from their own professors and peers. It is true—this is the generation that is going to save the country. 

And it’s exciting to see a common theme emerging all over the country, including outside the United States: the need to reform institutions. Several months ago in London, Jordan Peterson’s Alliance for Responsible Citizenship (ARC) conference invited me to address the broader topic, “Can Institutions Be Reformed?” As many of you know, ARC is bringing together voices from all over the world to discuss how to reinstate and preserve the institutions and best values of Western heritage, particularly the West’s unique commitment to freedom. 

The sudden emergence of this theme is also something to ponder. Why, at this moment in history, is it particularly important to consider how America’s institutions—here, colleges and universities—should be reformed, or whether they can even be reformed? 

After all, for decades we have been aware that our institutions were failing: editorialized, dishonest journalism; wasteful, corrupt government; and colleges and universities increasingly abandoning their essential purpose of fostering the free exchange of ideas and critical thinking in favor of agenda-driven social advocacy, particularly advocacy unbalanced toward the left. 

My answer? The tipping point finally came in 2020. COVID—the pandemic—fully exposed the massive institutional failure that could not be denied: the most tragic, the most blatant hijacking of freedom and breakdown of leadership in free societies in our lifetimes. 

Yet, oddly, the pandemic fiasco—the spark of this heightened focus on institutional reform—remained invisible at that weeklong ARC conference, unmentioned by dozens of speakers except for me. It was the elephant in the room, just as the truth about the death and destruction from the lockdowns remains missing from virtually all of America’s political discussions, including those in this administration and on university campuses today. Why has the page been turned with no accountability? Something to contemplate. 

We must not forget the role of the university in that epic failure. Lockdowns were not caused by the virus. Human beings decided to impose lockdowns, mandatory testing, irrational pseudoscientific masking, campus closures, and the isolation of students. Those campus shutdowns were decisions made by university leaders and university experts. 

We know the data, and we knew it then. The lockdowns were widely instituted, they failed to stop the dying, they failed to stop the spread, and they caused massive harm and death. That’s the data. 

Despite the known minuscule risk to students of serious disease from COVID by March 2020, and despite the disastrous harms unfolding among college students because of lockdowns by spring 2020—including the fact that one in four college students contemplated suicide because of the isolation—99 percent of the more than 4,000 colleges and universities shut down in-person classes later that year and shifted primarily online. Ninety-five percent forced masking, rigid mandatory testing, and the quarantine and isolation of students who tested positive from 2020 to 2022. Most major universities then required injection with an experimental drug that had known side effects. 

And those campus lockdowns directly inflicted massive damage on young people and students beyond the obvious learning loss. It must be stated again and again: we cannot forget the severe psychological harms, the explosion of depression and anxiety disorders, spiking drug abuse, the tripling of self-harm among teens, suicidal ideation—one in four college students contemplated suicide by June 2020 in the United States—an obesity crisis, and especially the impact on the poor. 

As Hannah Arendt observed in Eichmann in Jerusalem: 

“What has come to light is neither nihilism nor cynicism, as one might have expected, but a quite extraordinary confusion over elementary questions of morality.” 

More than incompetence, more than a lack of critical thinking, more than a failure of leadership—we saw a failure of society’s moral and ethical compass, so pervasive that we have rightfully lost trust in most institutions and leaders, trust that is essential to the function of any free and diverse society. 

And we must never forget this second point: we witnessed the shocking reality of overt censorship, and that censorship was welcomed—and indeed remains welcomed—by many today in our country, one explicitly founded on freedom, the defining trait of what this weekend’s forum is entitled: “The American Identity.” 

Perhaps this should not have been surprising. In my own recent reading and rereading, trying to understand what is happening in our country and in human nature, besides Dostoevsky, Kafka, Tolstoy, and Orwell, it was Alexis de Tocqueville who surprised me. Nearly 200 years ago in Democracy in America, he detailed his admiration for the extraordinary new nation of America, founded on unprecedented self-governance and personal freedom. 

Yet, amidst all his praise, Tocqueville wrote that despite laws protecting against physical persecution or censorship by the state: 

“I know of no country in which there is so little independence of mind and real freedom of discussion as in America. In America, the majority raises very formidable barriers to the liberty of opinion. Within these barriers, an author may write what he pleases, but woe to him if he goes beyond them. He is exposed to continued obloquy and persecution. Every sort of compensation is refused to him. Before making public his opinions, he thought he had sympathizers; now, it seems to him that he has none anymore. Those who blame him criticize loudly, and those who think as he does keep quiet and move away, without courage.” 

Why is understanding this so essential to university reform? 

Because universities and professors are granted privileged positions of leadership in our society. Professors are automatically, by virtue of their titles, deemed leaders and experts by the public. They are selected as key advisers to heads of government and as directors of government agencies. They are the media’s sources of expertise. They are highly respected and considered leaders. 

More than that, America’s universities are supposed to be the centers of the free exchange of ideas, aren’t they? 

In that role, university professors are entrusted to facilitate that exchange, to teach critical thinking to our children, and to serve as role models for civil discourse. That special respect, that trust, demands a very serious obligation on the part of university professors and leaders to meet the standard that deserves such trust. 

During the pandemic, university presidents and professors, falsely clothed by their titles, reminiscent of the Emperor’s, were exposed as lacking what it takes to be leaders. 

University presidents and professors broke the social contract with our most precious resource, our children, harming them directly. But they also failed as role models for free speech, and now, as a nation, the free exchange of ideas is under threat. Free speech—the bedrock principle of free societies—is perhaps especially important on campus, where it is modeled for our nation’s future leaders. 

Consider their response to those challenging the narrative and questioning their decisions to lock down schools, to force testing and quarantining of asymptomatic healthy students, and to require injection with an experimental vaccine for an illness from which healthy students had no serious risk. What was the response to speaking the truth at so-called “elite” universities, including my own employer, Stanford? 

Censorship: character assassination and intimidation. I proudly stand as the only faculty member to receive a formal censure from the faculty senate. 

It was direct, organized, and aggressive—to the point of inciting death threats that required FBI involvement and 24/7 police protection at my home on Stanford’s campus. More than that, it violated the essence of what universities are supposed to model to our children: civil discourse. 

Why is censorship used? To silence someone, yes, but more importantly, to deceive the public—including students, parents, and donors—to stop others from hearing and to convince a naïve public that there is some sort of consensus supporting their actions. 

But truth is not a team sport. Truth is not determined by consensus, by the number of people who agree, or by titles. It is discovered through debate and proven by critical analysis of evidence. Arguments are won by data and logic, not by personal attacks or by censoring others. 

Let’s think about the purpose of university education as part of the American identity. We go back to the Founding Fathers. In the founding documents of the University of Virginia, Thomas Jefferson wrote in 1818 that the purpose of university education is: 

“To develop the reasoning faculties of our youth, enlarge their minds, cultivate their morals, & instill into them the precepts of virtue & order.” 

These goals require free debate and the modeling of civil discussion. 

He went on: 

“Here we are not afraid to follow truth wherever it may lead, nor to tolerate any error, so long as reason is left free to combat it.” 

As a physician and professor at top universities for 30 years—as a graduate of the University of Chicago School of Medicine, when facts mattered—I fear for our students. By definition, students cannot learn critical thinking without hearing differing views, especially ideas with which they may disagree. After acquiring essential knowledge, critical thinking is the most important lesson to learn in college. 

So the question today is not only “How should universities be reformed?” but also “Can universities be reformed?” A key part of the answer is whether the lessons have been learned. Needless to say, I am concerned. 

Remember, most university leadership is still filled with people who shrink during emergencies and controversy and, worse, will not admit their errors. Hence their cover-up, their “let’s turn the page” approach, and their silence about the destruction caused by the pandemic and their direct role in that saga. Moreover, there is no accountability for those actions, and accountability serves as the critical deterrent in personal life, in any organization, and in any ethical society against the repetition of serious errors, harms, injustices, and abuses of power. 

Realize, too, that the plethora of university statements from those same people claiming a new or unyielding commitment to academic freedom are meaningless. People must be judged by actions, not by what they say. Everyone who has a child knows this. 

As of today, more than 110 colleges and universities have officially adopted the Chicago Statement or a substantially identical version. Many more have used it as a model. It is widely cited as the gold standard for institutional commitments to campus free speech and academic freedom. Universities point to the document as proof of their commitment, echoing its language in policy statements, orientation speeches, and press releases. 

Case in point: Stanford’s statement is 50 years old, and it says, “Expression of the widest range of viewpoints should be encouraged, free from institutional orthodoxy and from internal or external coercion.” I like to put it this way: the value of an electronic document is worth the paper it’s written on. 

Here’s today’s reality: 

While virtually all university presidents claim to stand strong for free speech and open inquiry, according to FIRE’s 2025 College Free Speech Rankings (based on approximately 59,000 student responses across 251 schools) and Campus Deplatforming Database (1,367 incidents from 1998–2025, with approximately 330 since 2020), self-censorship by conservative students is rampant, tolerance for controversial speakers is low, and disruption of conservative speakers often goes unpunished. 

Today, the top 50 universities have an average score of 55 out of 100—an “F.” Ivy League and Stanford-adjacent schools average 220th out of 251 in free speech rankings. Eighty-one percent have experienced deplatforming incidents, and 51 percent of students self-censor, while student tolerance for disruptions has reached record highs. Seventy-one percent of students are comfortable with shouting down speakers. Conservative speakers face 57–72 percent opposition, compared with 29–43 percent for liberal speakers. 

In my own analysis of scholarly publications from university faculty, leadership communications, and major student newspapers on censorship versus free speech at the top 50 U.S. universities from 2020 to 2025: 

• In peer-reviewed papers from faculty, pro-regulation positions dominate anti-censorship and pro-free speech positions by a 3-to-1 ratio. Of 3,724 misinformation papers, 85 percent imply a need for intervention, while only 15 percent warn of censorship risks. 

• In communications from university presidents, provosts, and deans, support for regulation of speech dominates by a ratio of 2.5 to 1. 

Even worse, many top universities are among the most active in creating even more sophisticated AI tools to censor so-called misinformation, even today. Several universities—again, especially Stanford, which converted its notorious Internet Observatory censorship enterprise into a more acceptable Stanford Cyber Security project—are actively researching and developing AI-based tools to detect and mitigate what they call misinformation, often in collaboration with technology companies, governments, and other institutions. Somehow they are now the arbiters of truth. 

Consider these metrics analyzed from 2024–2025 reports and grants: 

Institutions Involved: More than 25 major U.S. universities, along with more than 10 international institutions, lead or fund AI disinformation projects, spanning more than eight colleges or campuses per initiative on average. This is part of a broader trend: 70 percent of higher education institutions are today integrating AI specifically into teaching about detecting disinformation. 

Funding: More than $200 million in targeted 2024–2025 grants supports AI disinformation and fact-checking tools, in addition to billions of dollars flowing through broader AI pipelines from government, corporate and philanthropic sources, and academic seed funds. 

This is a $200 million-plus ecosystem, backed by NSF, IARPA, and DARPA, producing robust models that interrogate content—tools for control. 

Even in the face of murder intended to stop free speech, elite university leadership failed, compounding their moral failure by uniformly ignoring Charlie Kirk’s 2025 assassination—a direct murder aimed at stopping free speech. Not a single Top 20 school offered mental health support despite its campus setting and obvious impact on students. That stands in stark contrast to their widespread offerings of mental health and wellness support for previous left-favored crises, such as George Floyd’s death and both of President Trump’s elections. 

What’s the good news? And there is good news. 

First, media diversity and the flow of information are probably unstoppable. Information already overwhelms what were once severely limited channels. Here’s the key: the solution to misinformation is more information. No one should be trusted as the arbiter of truth. After all, the so-called experts were among the biggest purveyors of false information. Human beings are different from animals—we have the ability to reason. 

Second, many of us recognize that there has been a sudden explosion in new university institutes and programs dedicated to freedom of speech and what can broadly be called conservative thought. After a span of 50 years during which only zero to three such programs emerged every five years, nearly 40 new or greatly expanded programs have appeared on college campuses since 2021, attracting more than $200 million in funding. 

The third major positive development is the students. In the major student newspapers of the top 50 universities, anti-censorship articles outnumber pro-restriction pieces by a ratio of 2.4 to 1. 

I can also personally attest to what I see among students, not only at Stanford. I work with a new nonprofit, the Global Liberty Institute, directed at accelerating the careers of bold young professionals committed to freedom in business, journalism, government, law, finance, and the arts. In GLI’s Rising Leaders application, after the usual résumé, accomplishments, and references, we ask only one additional question: What have you done to demonstrate personal courage? 

Watching our growth in two years to more than 250 Rising Leaders has given me a new optimism and growing confidence that we will succeed. There are so many exceptional young people committed to preserving the essential freedoms that ensure a future of opportunity and prosperity. They need mentors, they need to know they are not alone, and their careers need to be accelerated. We see that right here among the University of Chicago students who have organized this and other symposia. 

In summary, there is no doubt that new versions of institutions need to emerge. Many of us are working on initiatives and policies to restore trust and accountability on campus, to ensure free speech, and therefore to foster free thought—the basis for the mission of education and successful societies. But most solutions come from individuals, and ultimately individuals, not institutions, will save freedom. 

However, I fear we still have a disastrous void of individual courage in our society. I am proud to be an outlier—happily proven right when the inliers are so wrong—but Alexis de Tocqueville was right. Cancel culture is highly effective, unfortunately. It stops others from speaking. I received hundreds of emails from doctors, scientists, and professors all over the country, including from my institution, Stanford, and from inside the NIH when I was in government, saying: “Keep talking, Scott. You’re 100 percent right, but we’re afraid for our families and our jobs.” 

To quote C.S. Lewis, “Courage is not simply one of the virtues, but the form of every virtue at the testing point.” 

We cannot have a successful, free, and diverse society if it is filled with people who lack the courage to speak and act with certainty on what Hannah Arendt called “elementary questions of morality.” 

Finally, to the students, we can never forget what G.K. Chesterton said: 

“Right is right, even if nobody does it. Wrong is wrong, even if everybody is wrong about it.”