Noah Carl

Noah Carl is a British sociologist and intelligence researcher who was investigated and subsequently dismissed from his position as a Toby Jackman Newton Trust Research Fellow at St Edmund's College, Cambridge after over 500 academics signed a letter repudiating his research and public stance on race and intelligence, calling it "ethically suspect and methodologically flawed". The decision to dismiss Carl was subsequently criticised as an attack on academic freedom. Others justified the decision, arguing that Carl's work relied on "selective use of data and unsound statistical methods which have been used to legitimise racist stereotypes about groups", and alleging that he had collaborated with individuals who hold far-right political views.

Carl received a BA in Human Sciences, an MSc in Sociology and a DPhil in Sociology from the University of Oxford. Previous to his appointment to the St Edmund's College, Cambridge fellowship, Carl's work made the news when he was the lead researcher in a study showing the link between artistic tastes and views on Brexit and another time when he analyzed the reasons why London pubs are disappearing. He also made the news for a report he wrote for the Adam Smith Institute, concluding that conservatives were heavily underrepresented among academics at British universities. Additionally, he was in the news for his study on the relationship between intelligence and trust in other members of society.

His work has been published in academic journals such as Intelligence, the Journal of Biosocial Science, the British Journal of Sociology. He is the second most prolific contributor to Open Quantitative Sociology & Political Science, an online journal that has been described in the New Statesman as a "pseudo-science factory-farm", and he has contributed to Mankind Quarterly, which is described as a white supremacist journal. According to an article in the New Statesman from February 2018, Carl had also published two papers on whether larger Muslim populations make terrorism more likely and one suggesting that British stereotypes about immigrants are "largely accurate".

Carl has spoken twice at the London Conference on Intelligence, a private conference on human intelligence at which some attendees presented papers on race and intelligence and eugenics. He was one of 15 attendees to collaborate on a letter defending the conference following media coverage. The letter was published in the journal Intelligence in September 2018.

In December 2018, Carl was awarded the Toby Jackman Newton Trust Research Fellowship at St Edmund's College. More than 500 academics signed a letter opposing Carl's appointment to the research fellowship, alleging that Carl's work was based on pseudoscience and discredited race sciences. Mathematician Clément Mouhot was one of the organizers of the letter. An editorial published by Quillette denounced the letter for undermining academic freedom and for making accusations without evidence. The editorial was endorsed by notable academics including Jonathan Haidt, Cass Sunstein, and Peter Singer. Sunstein later compared Carl's treatment to a stoning.

An internal investigation concluded that his work "demonstrated poor scholarship, promoted extreme right-wing views and incited racial and religious hatred", and that it fell outside the normal protections for academic free speech as a result. The investigation also found that Carl had "collaborated with a number of individuals who were known to hold extremist views" and concluded that continuing his affiliation would risk allowing the college to be used to "promote views that could incite racial or religious hatred" and damage the reputation of the college. Carl was subsequently dismissed from his fellowship. A separate investigation into the appointment process itself found no irregularities in the process of recruiting Carl.

An editorial in The Times was critical of the decision to terminate Carl's post, arguing that his "main offence seems to have been to challenge the “woke” left-wing orthodoxy" Opinion columnists in The Telegraph and The Spectator also criticised the decision. More than 600 academics signed a statement published by Quillette expressing support for Carl and disappointment with the Governing Body of St Edmund's College over the dismissal.

In June 2019, Noah Carl began crowdfunding a legal challenge to his dismissal. The crowdfunding campaign was conducted through a dedicated website set up by a developer who had previously established a dedicated crowdfunding site for Laura Loomer, and the MakerSupport crowdfunding service used by Richard Spencer and Carl Benjamin. By the 9th of July, 2019 it had raised 4/5ths of its $100,000 goal. In September, 2019 his $100,000 fundraising goal was reached.