A letter from Elizabeth Loftus, PhD to Quincy McCoy, General Manager of KPFA

July 27, 2017

To: Mr. Quincy McCoy, General Manager of KPFA gm@kpfa.org

From: Elizabeth Loftus, Ph.D. & Kaleda Denton, Student

We just met last night, one of us a professor at UC-Irvine (EL) and another a senior at UCLA (KD), and our conversation turned to the unfortunate events surrounding the disinvitation by KPFA of Richard Dawkins. Generations apart, we believe this is profoundly wrong. It is not only wrong for free speech issues, and our strong belief that the solution to free speech problem is more speech, as many others have already discussed. But there is more. As a University of California professor, EL spends her professional life in search of ways to inspire students. Dawkins has inspired so many young minds, and sent them in a scientific direction, including KD who is now, because of him, majoring in evolutionary biology at UCLA. So the disinvitation is a lost opportunity for Dawkins’ to reach many more young minds. We’ll start listening again to KPFA when the station does the right thing – apologizes to Dawkins and reissues that invitation.

Elizabeth F. Loftus, Ph.D.

Distinguished Professor

Psychology & Social Behavior

Criminology, Law & Society

School of Law