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Bret Samuel Weinstein (; born February 21, 1969) is an American , author, and former professor of evolutionary biology. He served on the faculty of Evergreen State College from 2002 until 2017, when he resigned in the aftermath of a series of campus protests about racial equity at Evergreen, which brought Weinstein to national attention. Like his brother Eric Weinstein, he was named as a member of the intellectual dark web in a 2018 New York Times essay by columnist Bari Weiss. Weinstein has been criticized for making false statements about COVID-19 treatments and vaccines, and for spreading AIDS denialism.
The event organizers responded that participation was voluntary and that the event did not imply that all white people should leave. The Washington Post reported that racial tensions had been simmering at Evergreen throughout 2017.
In May 2017, student protests disrupted the campus and called for a number of changes to the college. The protests involved allegations of racism, intolerance and threats; brought national attention to Evergreen; and sparked further debate about freedom of speech on college campuses. During the protests, protesters entered one of Weinstein's classes (which he had held in a public park) and confronted him, loudly accusing him of racism, demanding that he resign, and forcing the class to break up. Weinstein was advised by the Chief of Campus Police to temporarily stay away from campus for his safety.
Weinstein and his wife, Heather Heying, brought a lawsuit against the school, alleging that the college's president had not asked campus police to quell student protesters. Weinstein also said that campus police had told him that they could not protect him, and that they had encouraged him to stay off campus. Instead, Weinstein held his biology class that day in a public park. A settlement was reached in September 2017 in which Weinstein and Heying resigned and received $250,000 each, after having sought $3.8 million in damages.
In June 2019, Weinstein began the DarkHorse Podcast on his YouTube channel, which is usually co-hosted with his wife Heather. Their first guest was Andy Ngo. Other guests have included Harris, Glenn Loury, Douglas Murray, John Wood Jr., Thomas Chatterton Williams and Coleman Hughes. Topics for the podcast often center on current events, science, and culture.
Weinstein was a 2019–2020 James Madison Program Visiting Fellow at Princeton University, which continued for the 2020–2021 year.
In 2021, Weinstein and Heying's book, A Hunter-Gatherer's Guide to the 21st Century, was published. The book reached the New York Times Best Seller list for October 3, 2021, at No. 3 for Combined Print & E-Book Nonfiction and No. 4 for Hardcover Nonfiction. The hardcover listing was marked with a dagger, indicating that some retailers had reported receiving bulk orders. In a review for The Guardian, psychologist Stuart J. Ritchie writes that Weinstein and Heying "lazily repeat false information from other pop-science books", and that overall the book was characterized by an annoying, know-it-all attitude.
Weinstein has made erroneous claims that ivermectin can prevent or treat COVID-19, calling it "a near-perfect COVID prophylactic". There is no good evidence to support such claims. Weinstein has hosted ivermectin advocate Pierre Kory on his DarkHorse podcast to discuss the drug, and has advocated for the use of ivermectin on other podcast and television news appearances . Weinstein took ivermectin during a livestream video and said both he and his wife had not been vaccinated because of their fears concerning COVID-19 vaccines. On Rogan's podcast, Weinstein said that ivermectin alone is "good enough to end the pandemic at any point" and claimed that the drug's true effectiveness against COVID-19 was being suppressed in order to push vaccines for the financial benefit of Big Pharma. After Weinstein's and Heying's YouTube channels were demonetized in response to their claims about ivermectin, they moved their subsequent broadcasts to the fringe alternative video sharing platform Odysee. On an episode of Tucker Carlson Today, Weinstein said that if ivermectin functioned as he thought it did, then "the debate about the vaccines would be over by definition." Weinstein later said he was wrong to state that a study had shown a 100% effective ivermectin protocol for the prevention of COVID.
Weinstein told Haaretz that despite not having been vaccinated against COVID-19 himself, he supports vaccines in general and believes that have promise despite what he claims are "some clear design flaws". Weinstein has falsely claimed that the spike protein produced by or contained within COVID-19 vaccines is "very dangerous" and "cytotoxic". Eric Topol, vice-president of the Scripps Research Institute, stated that Weinstein's position on mRNA vaccines is "totally irresponsible. It's reckless. It's sick. It's predatory. It's really sad."
In a 2024 clip of the Tucker Carlson Network podcast that was widely shared on Instagram, Weinstein asserted that the World Health Organization's (WHO) proposed pandemic treaty to help member nations prevent and prepare for future infectious disease outbreaks could be used to strip U.S. citizens of their First Amendment rights to freedom of speech. He also later claimed that the WHO treaty would eliminate "national and personal sovereignty". However, the treaty would have no ability to override U.S. law or alter the U.S. Constitution, which is the supreme law of the land in the United States.
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