Dr. Elizabeth Weiss is concerned about the direction academia is heading. And she’s not afraid to say it out loud.
“Hardly a week passes without some new absurdity. The most absurd example is when the trans lobby got me canceled for saying skeletons are either male or female,” the anthropologist told The Post. “This will have serious, real-world consequences when the next generation of forensic pathologists can’t — or won’t — sex skeletal remains.”
In her new book “On the Warpath” — the very title of which is considered offensive by some — Weiss dives into the contentious landscape of modern academia, arguing that a pervasive woke culture is eroding its very foundations. She warns that the push to accommodate sociopolitical sensitivities can come at the expense of rigorous scientific debate and exploration.
The book is sure to receive some pushback. But Weiss is no stranger to controversy.
The academic’s troubles began four years ago with the publication of her book “Repatriation and Erasing the Past.” Then a tenured professor at San Jose State University, she openly criticized the reburial of Native American skeletal remains under the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA).
Weiss believes that the reburial of ancient bones — which she says is often based on indigenous oral traditions rather than empirical evidence — severely hampers the ability to understand human history, leading to significant gaps in our archaeological and anthropological knowledge.
In 2019, Weiss was awarded San Jose State’s College of Social Sciences’ Austen D. Warburton Award of Merit for excellence in scholarship. But a year later, the academic said, she faced severe backlash and was even labeled a “white supremacist” and a eugenecist for expressing in a book the same opinion she had been teaching for years.
In her new book, Weiss recounts posting to X a photo of herself holding a skull — and then being locked out of the university curation room containing the skeletal collections she curated for decades. She also alleges that the chair and dean of her department conspired to withhold funds and resources.
A representative for San Jose State’s College of Social Sciences did not respond to a request for comment.
“My own university, despite its proclaimed commitment to academic freedom, quickly caved under pressure,” she said. “My ability to conduct scientific research was curtailed, and I was deplatformed and insulted. “
She filed a First Amendment lawsuit against the university, which was settled out of court.
The professional ostracism, she said, extended to being removed from academic conferences and having her work rejected by editors.
Weiss insists that this response was not just a reaction to her views on reburial, but a broader symptom of an academic environment increasingly hostile to dissenting opinions and rigorous scientific debate.
“Academia has been deeply wounded by wokeism, and it’s making ever-increasing inroads into science. Identity politics, postmodernism, victim narratives and a Marxist mentality that hates all things Western are damaging the field,” she said. “Science is neutral, but scientists are often afraid to speak out due to the culture of fear.”
Weiss argues that the cultural shift towards prioritizing indigenous oral traditions over scientific evidence has led to a significant loss in our ability to reconstruct the past. She challenges the notion that indigenous knowledge should be equated with scientific knowledge, viewing the former as mythological rather than empirical.
“Museums are even more woke than universities,” she said, claiming that institutions like the American Museum of Natural History and the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History have begun removing human remains from display due to sensitivities and superstitions.
“I’ve been under almost constant attack from Native American activists, woke academics, and ideologically captured institutions,” Weiss told The Post. “I decided to stand up, set the record straight and take a stand for science, academic freedom and free speech.”
Since leaving San Jose State, she accepted a faculty fellowship at Heterodox Academy in New York City, where she continues her research.
“It’s been an amazing rollercoaster ride. I’ve become a villain to some, a hero to others,” Weiss said of the past few years. “Many people are aghast at what’s happening to anthropology and have reached out to thank me for fighting to keep the field alive.”
