1 just saw Expelled... Ben Stein's goal in making Expelled (i gather) is to promote free thought, especially more thinking about motivations that drive American academia and a lot of other behind-the-scenes worldview that we tend to take for granted.

2 If that's his goal, why does he need to lie about it?

3 erm...that is not stein's goal.
he is IQ baiting.
By now a lot of you will have seen Expelled.
You may think that Expelled is as advertised:
the film presents a powerful argument not for intelligent design as much as for the freedom of scientific inquiry.
Or you may agree with this:
One of the sleaziest documentaries to arrive in a very long time, “Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed” is a conspiracy-theory rant masquerading as investigative inquiry.
But both of you would be wrong.

What Expelled really is, is IQ-baiting.
You think that Stein is giving Acadame and Science a smackdown, which you likely percieve as well deserved.
But in reality, he is playing you.
He is selling tickets on your reactions.
Expelled isn't going to make Academe and Science open their minds to IDT.
It just validates your outrage that real scientists wont discuss IDT.
And also, your outrage that you can't make them.

The abortion-artist hoax was also IQ-baiting. She played you. She harvested your instantaneous outraged reactions for her performance art.

Look at captain ed here.
If scientists get punished for challenging orthodoxy, we will not expand our learning but ossify it in concrete.

But as all real scientists actually know, science is all about challenging orthodoxy.
Flat-earth was the orthodoxy, geo-centrism the heresy.
then geo-centrism was the orthodoxy, and helio-centrism became the heresy.
Unfortunately for Ed's argument, IDT is the orthodoxy, and TOE is the heresy.

The problem with falling for IQ-baiting scams....is that it makes you look stupid.
It reinforces a cultural stereotype.

I think you should try to be smarter.