Elizabeth Weiss -- For science over superstition.

Elizabeth Weiss holds a Ph.D. from the University of Arkansas in Environmental Dynamics (an interdisciplinary program involving anthropology and the geosciences), which she completed in 2001. From 2002 to 2004 she was a post-doctoral research associate at the Canadian Museum of Civilization. She landed her dream job at San José State University – as a professor of anthropology curating the largest single-site prehistoric collection west of the Mississippi – in 2004. In record time, and before the age of 40, Elizabeth made full professor.

Elizabeth is the author, with attorney James W. Springer, of the controversial and provocative book Repatriation and Erasing the Past (University of Florida Press, 2020), which takes a critical look at repatriation laws and the ideology behind these laws. This book started a savage and sustained cancel culture attack that began with over a thousand academics calling for its censorship. You can read more about this cancel culture attack in her latest book On the Warpath: My Battles with Indians, Pretendians, and Woke Warriors (Academica Press, 2024).

Her other books include Reading the Bones: Activity, Biology, and Culture (University Press of Florida, 2017) and Paleopathology in Perspective: Bone Health and Disease through Time (Rowman and Littlefield, 2014). In addition to her books, Elizabeth has written over three dozen academic articles ranging from looking at 2-million-year-old early humans to determining ways forensic anthropologists may estimate victim age, to reconstructing past lifestyles – including health, violence, and activity patterns – in pre-contact Californian Indians.

Elizabeth has written widely on Libertarian issues, such as freedom of speech, the importance of individual rights, and protection from government overreach. She has argued against laws, such as the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act, that put Indian creation myths ahead of scientific inquiry in order to repatriate and rebury America’s first peoples – a clear violation of the First Amendment’s Separation of Church and State.

Elizabeth has been featured in the New York Times, Science, USA Today, the Washington Examiner, Epoch Times, the National Review, Science, the Mercury News, the New Criterion, American Greatness, and the College Fix. From 2023 to 2024, she was a Heterodox Academy Faculty Fellow at their Center for Academic Pluralism in New York City. She is currently a National Association of Scholars Board Member.

On Fox News: https://www.foxnews.com/media/conference-cancels-panel-biological-sex-human-skeletons-transphobic-fears-commits-cardinal-sin

On NewsMax:
https://twitter.com/i/status/1708980585916420481

Engagement as an HxA Member:
Presented at HxA Virtual Event, Summit, or Conference
Published on HxA: The Blog
Guest on HxA Podcast
HxA Writers Group Member or Veteran
Active Member of an HxCommunity
Active Member of an HxA Campus Community
Faculty Fellow at HxA Center for Academic Pluralism
Speaker's Title and Institutional/Organizational Affiliation: Professor Emeritus of Anthropology, San Jose State University
Event Type :
Lecture/Presentation
Fireside Chat
Book Talk
Constitution Day Event
Classroom Visit
Workshop
Podcast
Debate, Forum, or HxConversation
Speaking Topics - List up to 5 specific topics or titles, each separated by a semicolon: Archaeology: Repatriation & Reburial; Forensic Anthropology; Sex & Gender; Academic Freedom & Freedom of Speech; Science, Superstition & Religions
Blackout Dates (Dates speaker is unavailable, Days/Month/Year): none
Distance Willing to Travel: Any/No Limits to Travel Radius
Scholarly Area: Social Sciences
Modality of Event : In Person and/or Virtual
Willingness to be recorded: Willing
Speaking Fee (Not including travel/lodging expenses): $0-$2,000 USD
Recent Appearance (1 of 5) -title, host institution, year: Indian Law and the First Amendment: A Catch-22 for Anthropologists and other Academics, Heterodox Academy Annual Conference, June 2024
Recent Appearance (2 of 5) -title, host institution, year: Burying Dissent: Anthropology's Funeral, Society for Academic Freedom and Scholarship, May 2024
Recent Appearance (3 of 5) -title, host institution, year: The Many Tribes in Academia: From the Black Trowel Movement to Queers for Palestine, Heterodox Academy at Wilfred Laurier University, May 2024
Recent Appearance (4 of 5) -title, host institution, year: Digging Up the Past, Free Inquiry at Brown University, October 2023
Recent Appearance (5 of 5) -title, host institution, year: The Cost of Academic Dissent, Stanford Academic Freedom Conference, Stanford University, November 2022
Link to Speaker's Professional Website (to include sample writings and more extensive bio): https://t.co/E4RQ83Kd4A