Eric Rasmusen is an American economist and former Professor of Business Economics and Public Policy at Indiana University Bloomington.[1] He is the author of the book Games and Information: An Introduction to Game Theory.[2]

In November 2019, Rasmusen was criticized by his university after a popular Twitter account posted a screenshot of one of his tweets that was characterized as "racist, sexist, and homophobic."[3] Rasmusen had retweeted an article titled "Are Women Destroying Academia? Probably" with a quote: "geniuses are overwhelmingly male because they combine outlier IQ with moderately low Agreeableness and Moderately low Conscientiousness."[3]

The university stated that they could not fire Rasmusen "because the first amendment of the United States constitution forbids us to do so".[4] Rasmusen posted a rebuttal to his personal website, in which he defended his Twitter activity and argued that he was being silenced for "dissident" beliefs.[5][6] Rasmusen retired in 2021.

References

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  1. ^ "Faculty Profile". Kelley School of Business. Archived from the original on 2019-12-14. Retrieved 2019-11-21.
  2. ^ Rasmusen, Eric (2006-11-28). Games and Information: An Introduction to Game Theory. Wiley. ISBN 978-1-4051-3666-2. Archived from the original on 2023-03-14. Retrieved 2021-04-23.
  3. ^ a b "IU won't fire professor for tweets provost called 'racist, sexist and homophobic'". Indianapolis Star. Archived from the original on 2019-11-21. Retrieved 2019-11-21.
  4. ^ Noor, Poppy (November 22, 2019). "University decries professor's 'vile' racism and sexism – but says it can't fire him". The Guardian. Archived from the original on November 22, 2019. Retrieved November 22, 2019.
  5. ^ Herron, Arika. "Indiana University professor Eric Rasmusen fires back and digs in on offensive tweets". Indianapolis Star. Archived from the original on 2019-11-22. Retrieved 2019-11-21.
  6. ^ "Rasmusen.org". www.rasmusen.org. Archived from the original on 2019-11-21. Retrieved 2019-11-21.
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