The Politically Correct Feed On One Of Their Own

I was re-reading a Rich Galen column this morning which made me smile. I know it is ancient history by now, but last week, Harvard President Larry Summers resigned. Mr. Summers was Secretary of the Treasury in the Clinton Administration.

He resigned for making an unpopular statement. You ask "what was Mr. Summers sin?" As Mr. Galen wrote last year (and keep in mind that Summers was the President of Harvard at the time):

The other day Larry Summers was giving a speech at a luncheon on the Harvard campus sponsored by the National Bureau of Economic Research. He said that one of the reasons there are few women at the top tiers of science and engineering is, according to a report in the Boston Globe, "women do not have the same 'innate ability' or 'natural ability' as men in some fields."

And further down in the article:

Summers also used as an example one of his daughters, who as a child was given two trucks in an effort at gender-neutral parenting. Yet she treated them almost like dolls, naming one of them ''daddy truck," and one ''baby truck."

Probably not the best thing to say on a liberal campus. I mean, Harvard (pronounced "Hah-vaad" in Massachusetts) is no Berkley, but it does have a slightly-to-the-left reputation. Anyways, it is a generalization and doesn't seem worthy of throwing a guy out of his position as President of Harvard. So he believes men and women are different. Big deal. Not very PC, but no big deal either.

Anyways, one year later, Mr. Galen writes:

Larry Summers is stepping down as President of Harvard University.

Normally we wouldn't be the least concerned about anything going on at Harvard - with the possible exception of a cheating scandal involving a Spanish test and the senior Senator from Massachusetts - nor with a former member of Bill Clinton's cabinet.

But, the matter of Larry Summers is interesting because it occurs at the intersection of academic freedom and political correctness.

To review the bidding, a little over a year ago Dr. Summers (PhD in economics, Harvard '82) gave a speech in which he indicated (well, he actually said), "women do not have the same 'innate ability' or 'natural ability' as men in some fields."

This was not handled at all well by some of the gals in the all-female audience and caused quite the little stir at the time (see MULLINGS - 01-19-05) leading to the Harvard faculty voting "no confidence" in Dr. Summers. Just in case word of their displeasure hadn't gotten to his office, another no confidence vote was scheduled for next week if he didn't resign.

In the interests of academic curiosity, let us reverse the facts and pretend that a tenured professor had said "women do not have the same innate ability as men" and soon-to-be-former President Summers had demanded that professor resign.

The faculty might well have refused to sup with the troglodyte in the faculty dining hall, but we assume they would have defended his right to free academic speech with utmost vigor (that's the way we write when we are speaking of university faculty people and the like).

It always amazes me how someone like Ward Churchill over at U of Colorado can make crazy statements and hide behind "academic freedom." Yet, the president of Harvard University cannot make a simple generalization without getting thrown off campus. This thing turned into a feeding frenzy and it cost the President of Harvard his job. It is interesting when the liberals turn on one of their own.

Harvard , Politically Correct , PC