No, this is false. That way lies fascism. Anyone with expertise, academics included, has a responsibility to call out elected officials who are acting badly or advocating bad policies.
Elected officials have a responsibility to the people, one of which is to not punish private citizens for speaking their mind.
I mean holy fuck. Abuse of power doesn’t get much more obvious then this.
If you read the guardian article, students barely remembered the lt gov being mentioned, and it was in the context of medicine, which the lt gov has made a habit of inserting himself into.
Also: A professor criticizing an elected official wrt their specialty is how the system is supposed to work. Experts ought to call out bullshit when they see it. An elected official using their office to silence that critique is gross at best and unworthy of our democratic ideals
The chancellor was texting about her to the lt gov’s chief of staff, as per the article. That’s fairly damming – there’s no legitimate reason for the lt gov to get involved with a university professor.