Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, a professor of medicine at Stanford University, was awarded the American Academy of Sciences and Letters’ Robert J. Zimmer Medal for Intellectual Freedom on Wednesday. The award, considered one of the academy’s highest honors, recognizes individuals who demonstrate exceptional courage in defending intellectual freedom, especially when faced with political pressures to alter their work. Bhattacharya’s outspoken stance on COVID-19 policies led to this recognition, which he received at the academy’s annual ceremony held at the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C. There, he also joined Princeton University Professor Stephen Macedo for a discussion on his journey and challenges faced during the pandemic.
During the interview, Macedo asked Bhattacharya about the initial moment when he opposed the government’s COVID-19 measures. Reflecting on that time, Bhattacharya shared, “I wasn’t prepared for it… I had never published an op-ed. I had never been on TV. I was a quiet scholar, and I had this idea regarding the pandemic that the disease was more widespread than people realized.” He explained that after writing an op-ed, he encountered a strong backlash, including death threats, and noted that Stanford University investigated him over unsubstantiated allegations. “The university, which I loved, … investigated me for false allegations … that they knew were false,” he said, adding, “I got sent a very clear signal that I needed to stay quiet.”
Despite the intense scrutiny and personal distress, Bhattacharya felt compelled to continue voicing his concerns. “I lost sleep, I couldn’t eat,” he recalled, “But I decided that I didn’t care about my career anymore and I needed to say what I saw.” Bhattacharya believed that the existing policies disproportionately impacted the less fortunate, saying, “These policies that we were following were going to harm a lot of poor people … and there were better policies possible.” In 2020, he co-authored the Great Barrington Declaration, an open letter aimed at public health authorities and government officials, challenging the effectiveness of lockdowns and other restrictive pandemic measures. Describing his motivations, he called the declaration “the least original thing” he had written, and Macedo observed that the ideas in the letter echoed earlier pandemic strategies.
Bhattacharya also made comparisons with past health crises, including the 1968 Hong Kong flu, humorously pointing out that the United States held the Woodstock festival rather than enforcing restrictive measures. He argued that normal social activities should not be completely halted, saying, “The idea that disrupting normal social life is in itself bad for health, I thought was a commonplace in public health.”
Macedo then asked Bhattacharya why governments worldwide resorted to lockdowns and strict measures akin to those implemented in China. Bhattacharya attributed this approach to a complex set of factors, primarily fear. “I think it’s complicated, but … the central thing is fear. I think public health authorities were scared of this new disease, and they decided that scaring people was also a good policy.” He also noted that modern technology played a significant role in allowing widespread dissemination of pandemic protocols and real-time tracking, a concept unthinkable in previous eras.
Macedo brought up the fact that while Bhattacharya was seen as “a dissenter from mainstream policy,” many others agreed with his perspective but hesitated to speak up. Bhattacharya explained that fear was a major factor holding people back. “I think people were very, very scared, both about their own physical safety, but also, they’re scared for their own careers,” he said, noting that he shared those concerns initially.
During the interview, Bhattacharya touched on a lawsuit he is involved in, which alleges that the Biden administration encouraged social media companies to suppress views contrary to official COVID-19 policies. “In 2022, when Elon Musk bought Twitter, it turns out that I had been placed on a blacklist the day I joined Twitter because I put the Great Barrington Declaration on there,” he stated. He emphasized that this action was not random, “There was a systematic campaign by the federal bureaucracy, including the CDC, the surgeon general’s office,” he said, claiming that federal agencies exerted pressure on social media platforms to silence opposition voices. “The American First Amendment didn’t hold during the pandemic. We did not have free speech,” Bhattacharya asserted. He expressed optimism that his side would ultimately prevail in court, noting, “The government going to Twitter or to Facebook and saying ‘Silence Jay or silence people like Jay who are saying these kinds of things,’ where I’m not told I’m being silenced, I don’t get to tell the government to go take a hike … that’s a violation of the First Amendment.”
The conversation shifted to what Macedo described as an increasing tendency toward “paternalism in public health,” where officials assume that the public lacks a full understanding of the science and should thus be guided rather than informed openly. Bhattacharya countered this view by pointing to the role of scientific consensus in ethical public health advice. “If I go around and say smoking is good for you … I’ve done something deeply harmful to the public … but the ethical basis for that is that there really is an honest scientific consensus that smoking is terrible for you.” However, he argued that the pandemic lacked such a consensus, adding, “What we needed was everyone speaking up and saying what they saw, so there was no ethical basis for the normal public health angle to say, ‘Look, you just need to fall in line and say what everybody else says.’”
The discussion wrapped up with Macedo asking Bhattacharya if a recent conference on COVID-19 policy at Stanford, which Bhattacharya organized, hinted at a shift in Stanford’s stance on open debate. Bhattacharya expressed optimism, sharing that the university’s president had chosen to avoid taking a stance on the matter. “What he said was, ‘We have an obligation to be the kind of place where these kinds of conversations happen,’” Bhattacharya recounted. He concluded, “What we do as universities is provide the platform where people of good faith can come together and talk to each other. That’s what we’ve forgotten about, and that leads to great things.”
The Zimmer Medal has been awarded only once before, with Sir Salman Rushdie as the inaugural recipient in 2023. Rushdie, known for his critical commentary on the Quran in his book The Satanic Verses, was celebrated for his resilience and “refusal to be silenced.”
In addition to the Zimmer Medal, the American Academy of Sciences and Letters also recognized ten professors with Barry Prizes for Distinguished Intellectual Achievement, acknowledging contributions across various academic fields. Recipients included Akhil Reed Amar and Nicholas Christakis from Yale, Henry Louis Gates, Karin Öberg, and Jeannie Suk Gersen from Harvard, among others. Each Barry Prize laureate was awarded a $50,000 cash prize as part of their recognition.
Moreover, over fifty new members joined the academy this year. Salvatore Torquato, a Princeton professor among the new inductees, commended the academy’s dedication to defending academic freedom, which he described as “sorely needed.” The academy’s mission, according to its website, is to champion “intellectual rigor” and support the “truth-seeking, knowledge-advancing” role of academic institutions. Howard University’s Gospel Choir added to the ceremony’s atmosphere with a live performance.