Boston Globe has second thoughts about lynching Larry Summers

Colleges and Universities A-Z Harvard University
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<p>Not fully repenting, but having doubts ...</p>

<p>Even as the puritan judges concluded they acted hastily in the Salem witch trials:</p>

<p>From editorial:</p>

<p>"The Harvard Corporation, a board currently composed of six men and one woman, is the ultimate authority within the university. James R. Houghton, its senior member, affirmed its confidence in Summers this week.</p>

<p>The corporation selected Summers because he was an assertive academic not afraid to offend power centers within the university in pursuit of his and the corporation's agenda. This includes improving undergraduate education, enhancing the role of the life sciences, and moving a substantial portion of the university's academic activities to Allston."</p>

<p><a href="http://www.boston.com/news/education/higher/articles/2005/02/19/support_for_summers/%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.boston.com/news/education/higher/articles/2005/02/19/support_for_summers/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>From Sam Allis column:</p>

<p>After a very public dust-up with former Harvard professor Cornel West, who left in 2002 to hang his hat at Princeton, Summers is now receiving incoming from people livid at his recent suggestion that, as a gender, women may be inherently less equipped to excel at science than men. And at a faculty meeting with him last week, members of both sexes let fly at his czarist proclivities.</p>

<p>My first reaction to all this is, yep, that's Larry. My second is the man must be doing something right. Let's start with West. All the academic types I've talked to, to the best of their understanding, agree privately with Summers that West was not performing at the level a university professor should.</p>

<p>How Summers handled the situation is another matter. Like Conan the Barbarian, his interpersonal skills are modest. But the Harvard corporation knew this when it hired him. Summers had been Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin's attack dog in Washington. After a decade of soft leadership from Neil Rudenstine, the corporation wanted a breaker of china.</p>

<p>And the torrent of distemper flowing in reaction to his comments on women and science merely confirms the broad reservoir of political correctness on our nation's elite campuses. Regardless of how you feel about the subject -- and no one I'm aware of has cornered the market on the truth -- that a president of Harvard cannot broach the subject without being savaged is scary.</p>

<p><a href="http://www.boston.com/news/education/higher/articles/2005/02/20/harvard_hullabaloo/%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.boston.com/news/education/higher/articles/2005/02/20/harvard_hullabaloo/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>Letter from 6 women from the Class of 1980:</p>

<p>WE ARE women from the Harvard College Class of 1980. We first met Harvard President Lawrence Summers when we were undergraduates and he was a graduate student and resident economics tutor in Lowell House.</p>

<p>Harvard could be a somewhat daunting place for many students, and particularly for women, in those days. Our class was 60 percent men, and there was a larger contingent of legatees than there is today. Larry was for some of us an Economics 10 section leader, for others an informal economics tutor, and a friend and adviser to each of us. He encouraged us all to perform at the highest levels in our academic work. He took our comments and arguments seriously, and treated each of us with the greatest respect. He fostered in us an appreciation for logical thought, intellectual honesty, and scientific rigor in analyzing issues. Perhaps most important, he urged us to have confidence in our abilities. He never made the slightest distinction between us and our male peers.</p>

<p>In addition, Larry has been a friend to us throughout our careers, often providing support, encouragement, and wise counsel.</p>

<p><a href="http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/letters/articles/2005/02/20/summers_gave_us_support_counsel/%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/letters/articles/2005/02/20/summers_gave_us_support_counsel/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

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<p>I'm pretty hardcore radically feminist...and I think people should give the guy a break.</p>

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<p>Feom Boston Herald editorial yesterday:</p>

<p>Summers' provocation works
By Boston Herald editorial staff
Saturday, February 19, 2005</p>

<p>What is it about the word <code>provoke'' those Harvard intellectuals don't understand? The transcript of Harvard University president Larry Summers' now infamous remarks about a female's innate scientific capabilities proves he was doing just what he said he was doing, provoking discussion.
</code>I've given you my best guesses after a fair amount of reading. . . They may be all wrong,'' Summers said at the Jan. 14 conference. ``I will have served my purpose if I have provoked thought on this question and provoked the marshalling of evidence to contradict what I have said.''</p>

<pre><code> Summers apologized once again in a letter accompanying the release of the transcript. He's the one who deserves the apology.
</code></pre>

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<p>Exerpt from long article by free speech advocate HARVEY A. SILVERGLATE:</p>

<p>THE INMATES TOOK over the asylum at Harvard last week, thanks to President Lawrence Summers’s ignominious, ill-considered, and likely ill-fated retreat in the face of an organized assault by highly politicized feminist academics and their allies. At issue were comments Summers made, at a January 14 conference, merely stating the obvious: that genetic differences between the sexes might in part account for women’s underrepresentation in math, science, and engineering, and that research must be conducted to answer the hard questions and devise remedies. He should have known, however, that in the modern academy, it is no longer acceptable to speak honestly or intelligently about gender, race, sexual identity, or any other issue that has already been "decided" by entrenched orthodoxies — that these are no longer acceptable topics for rational discussion, much less scientific research.
...
An here’s the irony: Summers’s "feminist" critics set back the struggle for gender equality far more effectively than even the most sexist anti-intellectual troglodyte ever could.
...
Two iconic images emerge from this unseemly rout: that of a male Harvard president running for cover because he dares ask an "offensive" question, and that of a female professor promoting the sexist stereotype of the weak, vulnerable woman who gets nauseated, throws up, and has to leave the room for her smelling salts when she encounters an idea she finds threatening. Quite a pair of role models! And yet it is Summers who is attacked for demeaning women.
...
THE MODERN university is the culmination of a 20-year trend of irrationalism marked by an increasingly totalitarian approach to highly politicized issues. Students are subjected to mandatory gender- and racial-sensitivity training akin to thought reform, often during freshman orientation and sometimes as punishment (or "remedial education") for uttering offensive speech. Faculty members and administrators are made to understand that their careers are at risk if they deviate from the accepted viewpoint. So, even though academic administrators don’t necessarily believe in the official positions, in this brave new world, they must acquiesce for professional reasons. The mantra of the modern campus administrator — usually more a mindless bureaucrat than an intellectual leader — has become "no trouble on my watch."</p>

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<p>Letters to the editor - NT Times</p>

<p>To the Editor:</p>

<p>Re "Furor Lingers as Harvard Chief Gives Details of Talk on Women" (front page, Feb. 18):</p>

<p>Lawrence H. Summers should not have to resign his job as president of Harvard for the recent remarks he made about women. He should not even have to apologize for what he said.</p>

<p>I looked over the transcript that was just released, and if anything, he should be commended for daring to bring up such a controversial issue in this age of extreme political correctness.</p>

<p>There is a shortage of women in the sciences and engineering, and while Dr. Summers's theory may not be correct (which he himself admits is possible), the problem will never be solved if people refuse to bring it up.</p>

<p>Mark Ayoub</p>

<p>San Antonio, Feb. 18, 2005</p>

<p>•</p>

<p>To the Editor:</p>

<p>For shame, Harvard! In a spasm of empty-minded righteousness lethally mixed with self-important faculty pique, you are taking down the first independent thinker to lead the university in years.</p>

<p>Ruth Lurie Kozodoy</p>

<p>New York, Feb. 18, 2005</p>

<p>The writer is a Harvard graduate.</p>

<p>•</p>

<p>To the Editor:</p>

<p>As an outsider, I cannot comment on Lawrence H. Summers's management style, but it would be regrettable if the underlying cause of the professorial uproar were his statement about women's scientific aptitude.</p>

<p>Harvard can earn its reputation for excellence only if it is presided over by a man who does not shy away from controversial statements, even if unpopular. I hope that Dr. Summers will not be intimidated into the confines of political correctness.</p>

<p>Rebecca Birnbaum</p>

<p>Providence, R.I., Feb. 16, 2005</p>

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<p>you nicely didn't mention the other nytimes letters for the same day:</p>

<p>To the Editor: </p>

<p>Now that Lawrence H. Summers's remarks about the shortage of women in the sciences and engineering are public, his infuriating notions about what he condescendingly calls women's "legitimate family desires" may finally get as much attention as his speculations about "intrinsic" differences in male and female aptitude. </p>

<p>Dr. Summers opined that the primary reason women are underrepresented is that a "much higher fraction of married men" than married women were willing to work 80-hour weeks to attain "high powered" jobs.</p>

<p>Well, if that's true, why is it true?</p>

<p>It is not that men give up their "legitimate" family desires. It's not that women aren't willing to work 80-hour weeks. Rather, men can still rely on women to hold the family together while they pursue their high-intensity careers. </p>

<p>Once again, Dr. Summers is blaming the victim. </p>

<p>Nancy Brockway
Boston, Feb. 18, 2005</p>

<p>•</p>

<p>To the Editor:</p>

<p>Having honed my close reading skills as a Harvard undergraduate, I saw something startling in the transcript of Lawrence H. Summers's remarks. He implied that the 80-hour workweek demanded of many high-achieving professionals is simply a matter of personal choice: for some reason more men are "prepared to make" that "commitment." </p>

<p>By framing the choice in a vacuum, Dr. Summers utterly missed the point.</p>

<p>It is not simply that more men want to devote themselves to their work; it is that more men can because they have wives. </p>

<p>More important, although those wives today often have the same educational credentials as their husbands, they still make less than 80 cents on a man's dollar.</p>

<p>To work 80 hours a week, one must either eschew domestic life altogether or find someone else to maintain it for you. Combine that with the persistent pay gap, and you find that the determinants of who pursues professional success are much more than personal choice. </p>

<p>Rachel B. Tiven
New York, Feb. 18, 2005</p>

<p>•</p>

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<p>With regards to those last 2 letters, Crimson Bulldog--Summers said that in his speech. This is exactly the problem--a few people got angry at his statement, and now everyone else is taking it out of context.</p>

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<p>hey, just balancing out a seemingly arbitrary omission by Byerly.</p>

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<p>Prior to Summers comments, some faculty and students were already concerned about the seeming discrimination against female professors at Harvard. Fewer female professors were being offered tenure, fewer (I believe) were being recruited. It was already suspected that Summers might hold sexist beliefs. </p>

<p>Then Summers made his statement and, for Summers critics, everything seemed to fall into place.</p>

<p>The issue here isn't free speech and legitimate scientific inquiry, it's whether his comments are the "smoking gun" proving sexist beliefs and a rationale for the suspected discrimination.</p>

<p>Defenders of Summers want to limit the scope of the issue to free speech because who can argue against free speech; but it's more than that.</p>

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<p>"Like Conan the Barbarian, his interpersonal skills are modest."</p>

<p>That's my LOL of the day.</p>

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<p>The biggest irony about this enormous debate centering on President Summers' comments is how honest his comments are. I am first going to reveal my own bias so others can understand my point of view. I am a male who actively supports the feminist cause. </p>

<p>No feminist or for that matter would ever state that President Summers' comments were false. They are aren't. The reason women aren't able to obtain careers in the hard sciences is because women in this day and age are still subtly coaxed into assuming their motherly duties (for whatever reason- be it marriage or whatever). Men for millenia have never been associated with raising children. Men have been seen as bread winner (women have not). This image of men and women have become cyclical and engrained throughout society (through popular culture) to become social norms. I don't believe for one second that women are innately smarter/dumber/different than males (aside from reproductive and hormonal differences). I believe that many men and women still follow old, archaic norms that cause these dramatic differences to occur (in regards to women and men in the hard sciences). </p>

<p>The day men have to raise children and stay at home and breast feed their children will be the day that women eliminate the pay inequality that exists in the status quo.</p>