Carl E. Schneider
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- September 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780262028912
- eISBN:
- 9780262328784
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- The MIT Press
- DOI:
- 10.7551/mitpress/9780262028912.003.0006
- Subject:
- Biology, Bioethics
Censors notoriously err, and IRBs are censors. They tell researchers what they may study, how they may structure and conduct inquiries, what they may say to subjects, and how they may report results. ...
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Censors notoriously err, and IRBs are censors. They tell researchers what they may study, how they may structure and conduct inquiries, what they may say to subjects, and how they may report results. First-amendment jurisprudence has learned that censors’ incentives and psychology make them poor and repressive decision-makers. Predictably, then, IRBs underweight interests in free inquiry, unfettered speech, and academic freedom while favoring orthodoxy in scholarship and ideology. First-amendment jurisprudence stringently limits administrative agencies that attempt to license expression. IRBs have assumed they are subject to none of these limits.Less
Censors notoriously err, and IRBs are censors. They tell researchers what they may study, how they may structure and conduct inquiries, what they may say to subjects, and how they may report results. First-amendment jurisprudence has learned that censors’ incentives and psychology make them poor and repressive decision-makers. Predictably, then, IRBs underweight interests in free inquiry, unfettered speech, and academic freedom while favoring orthodoxy in scholarship and ideology. First-amendment jurisprudence stringently limits administrative agencies that attempt to license expression. IRBs have assumed they are subject to none of these limits.
