Writing in today’s Wall Street Journal, L. Gordon Crovitz praises the creation of the Milton Friedman Institute at the University of Chicago with an article entitled “Good Scholarship is Worth Honoring.”

He’s quite right and the good news is that the protest of a leftist cabal on the faculty is apparently having no effect on university president Robert Zimmer.

In the eyes of the Left, Friedman committed the unpardonable sin of doing scholarly investigation into the impact of government economic policy, rather than just taking it on faith that good intentions produce good results. Milton Friedman did as much as anyone to shatter the illusion that socialistic meddling with the free market order is necessary and beneficial.

Galileo wasn’t popular for his scientific attack on illusions either.