> But it is extremely rare that a university publicly disavows its staff.
And they didn't even do that in this case. They retracted the study because it was flawed. The researcher has had an opportunity to revise the study, which happened; updates in [1]. The retraction spells all this out; here's an excerpt, my emphasis added. You'll note that the researcher didn't lose her job, she just had to do a little more work to address concerns raised. Universities have to do this once and a while, when they publicize faulty research -- retract it, and if the researcher is willing to patch issues, post a revision.
> The University feels it is important to make the following three points about this incident:
> 1. This is not about academic freedom, as some news outlets have made it out to be. This faculty member — and, indeed, all Brown faculty members — have the right to conduct research on topics they choose. This is the case even for research that leads them into politically controversial territory. Brown gives its full support to this faculty member to conduct her research and publish her work.
> 2. This is about academic standards. Brown can publicize only a small subset of the great research conducted by our faculty. As a research institution, we feel we must ensure that work that is featured on the University website conforms to the highest academic standards. Given the concerns raised about research design and methods, the most responsible course of action was to stop publicizing the work published in this particular instance. We would have done this regardless of the topic of the article.
> 3. Academic freedom and inclusion are not mutually exclusive. This paper has attracted wide attention due to its politicized nature. Brown is steadfast in conveying to people who object to the content of the research that we stand by academic freedom, and will not do anything to thwart this (or any) faculty member’s research.
This is the problem with publications like The Federalist and Huffington Post: they mix editorializing and fact without making a clear distinction between the two. They've got agendas, and their primary focus is on reader enragement.
[1] https://news.brown.edu/articles/2018/08/gender
