The National Association of Scholars’ Trofim Lysenko Award is back!

What’s that, you ask. Louis K. Bonham explains on Minding the Campus:

It’s time again for the Minding the Campus (MTC) Trofim Lysenko Award for the Suppression of Academic Speech. Named after the notorious Stalinist pseudoscientist whose crackpot agronomist theories—and persecution of those with the temerity to challenge them—led to the deaths of millions, the MTC Lysenko Award calls attention to those in academia who promote or advocate the silencing of academic inquiry and speech, especially where the motive for doing so is based on political disagreement.

The competition is tough and winning takes true villainy. Here’s an example:

Past recipients of the award have included Williams College professor and department chair Phoebe Cohen, one of the keyboard commandos behind the online mob that led the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) to shamefully cancel its invitation of the University of Chicago geophysicist Dorian Abbot to present MIT’s annual Carlson Lecture—in which Prof. Abbot would have discussed “Climate and the Potential for Life on Other Planets.”

Nominees?