Petition‑Driven Academic Censorship

Academic petitions and open letters—when aimed at individual scholars and signed en masse—function as an institutional tool to impose reputational and professional costs, often outside formal review or adjudication processes. A growing, documented corpus (Carl’s database of 81 cases since 2019) shows these campaigns recur across disciplines and can prompt de‑invitations, retractions, and career damage. — If mass petitions are becoming a standard lever of academic governance, they materially affect free inquiry, hiring/invitation practices, and public confidence in expert institutions.