The following remarks were given by Dr. Donald Landry, MD, PhD, President of the American Academy of Sciences and Letters, at the Academy’s 2023 Investiture held at the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C. on Wednesday, October 23, 2024.

Those centers of scholarship, teaching, and learning that we know as universities began to emerge in Europe in the 11th and 12th centuries. At their best, they reflect and embody the truth-seeking spirit of humanity, at our best.

The desire to understand ourselves and our world is part of our nature as rational creatures. We are curious and inquisitive. We seek knowledge, and that special kind of knowledge revered as wisdom. Though the journey is hard, we long to trek the path to greater, deeper, richer understanding.

“E Tenebris ad Lucem” – “from darkness into light.”

Of course, we value knowledge for its usefulness, and we honor the diligent pursuit of useful knowledge across the academic disciplines. Yet, we also seek knowledge for its own sake, because to understand our world is inherently enriching for us as human beings. And we especially value the pursuit of what may legitimately claim to be the highest form of knowledge, namely, deeper insight into what it means to be human.

The resolute pursuit of truth, especially of the deepest and most important truths, is not for the faint of heart. On the contrary, it requires bold questioning and fearless inquiry. It requires independence of mind. It requires us to be people of courage.

Learned academies date to the 15th Century. On this continent they pre-date the founding of the United States. Such academies are created to respond to the circumstances of their times and places. And yet, they are shaped by a perennial mission: to recognize, honor, encourage and support the search for truth, and to uphold and defend the freedoms of thought, inquiry, and discussion necessary for that search.

The American Academy of Sciences and Letters, like all learned academies, was founded to honor distinguished scholarly achievement across the disciplines of the university and thereby promote scholarship and learning. However, responding to the circumstances and exigencies of our own time and place, this Academy places a special accent on rededication to the culture of academic excellence and on lifting up for the highest recognition eminent scholars whose exceptional achievements are the fruit of independence of mind and intellectual courage.

Members of the American Academy of Sciences and Letters are scholars who have made extraordinary contributions in the humanities, social sciences, natural sciences, mathematics, engineering, the arts, and the learned professions. Tonight, we will invest a total of sixty new members into the Academy, including—later tonight—the ten recipients of this year’s Barry Prize.

The remarkable achievements of these sixty scholars are an inspiration to us. They include Nobel laureates, a Pulitzer Prize winner, and recipients of practically every other prestigious prize the academic world has to offer. Their accomplishments range from advances in gene editing and chemical system modeling, to the composition of novels and symphonies, to the close study of legal systems, historical developments, religious ideas, and the phenomena of human happiness.

Each year, the Academy confers upon a person whose outstanding achievements are founded on exemplary intellectual courage the Robert J. Zimmer Medal for Intellectual Freedom.

This Medal recognizes the work and profound witness of the late Robert Zimmer, who served from 2006 to 2021 as President of the University of Chicago. President Zimmer was an acclaimed mathematician whose commitment to intellectual excellence and academic freedom became the stuff of legend. It was his inspired vision and leadership that bequeathed to the academic world the Chicago Principles of academic freedom, principles that he went on to apply courageously and even-handedly as university president.

The Chicago Principles have been adopted by 110 colleges and universities by our last count, ranging from Princeton University to the University of Virginia, to Amherst College. They represent the gold standard for freedom of thought, inquiry, and discussion for the academic world.

President Zimmer passed away last year, a terrible loss for his family, his university, and for all who labor in the vineyard of higher education. On behalf of the board of the Academy of Sciences and Letters, I approached President Zimmer’s widow, Professor Shadi Bartsch-Zimmer, and related how deeply we revere him for his visionary support of academic freedom and integrity, and how we sought through the Zimmer Medal to honor President Zimmer—with her permission—in order that his memory and contributions might endure.

She responded: “Bob would have been delighted and I am too. I hope that the Robert J. Zimmer Medal for Intellectual Freedom will be a beacon for many as we go forward, as Bob was himself.” 

This is our shared hope. And I am delighted that, as she did last year, Professor Shadi Bartsch-Zimmer has once again joined us tonight to award the medal.

Thank you, Shadi, for the honor of your presence.

Last year, as we prepared to award the inaugural Zimmer Medal, we asked ourselves: Who could merit such an award for intellectual freedom, and intellectual courage?

The board of the Academy unanimously chose to confer the 2023 Zimmer Medal on Sir Salman Rushdie, the globally famed novelist who has endured decades of threats and attacks for freely expressing his ideas with determined resolve. Sir Salman joined us in this hall last year to receive this award.

This year, the board of the Academy has unanimously chosen to confer the 2024 Zimmer Medal on Dr. Jay Bhattacharya of Stanford University.

For over twenty years, Dr. Bhattacharya has been a leading authority on biomedical innovation, the economics of health care, and public policy affecting the health of vulnerable populations. He has produced over 200 scholarly publications, directs Stanford University’s Center for Demography and Economics of Health and Aging, and is affiliated with prominent national institutions such as the National Bureau of Economics Research.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, Dr. Bhattacharya, like so many others, pivoted his work to make his formidable expertise available to the public in its time of dire need. And, as happens so often in the practice of science, his findings did not immediately and completely confirm what many people were expecting him to find.

In the fear and uncertainty of that undeniably challenging global emergency, some public officials found themselves asking: Can we afford to permit scientists to publicize unexpected findings and express ideas and opinions that deviate from those policies initially advocated and widely instituted? Or does our responsibility to public safety somehow require us to use administrative power to project and enforce the appearance of consensus in the findings of science, and the opinions of scientists?

Dr. Bhattacharya’s response demonstrated the courage and firm commitment to intellectual freedom that the Zimmer Medal exists to honor. He not only resolutely refused despite enormous pressure to compromise his scientific findings, but placed at risk his own personal and professional self-interest, repeatedly, without hesitation, to take a stand for the public’s right to unrestricted scientific discussion and debate.

As we now know from comparison of States’ pandemic experiences, health policy guided by Dr. Bhattacharya’s work saved lives—but how many more could have been saved if everyone holding levers of power shared his courage and his commitment to intellectual freedom?

Dr. Bhattacharya’s example, like that of Sir Salman, reminds us that the only thing more costly than standing up for intellectual freedom would be failing to make that stand.