<p>Hey, I always thought of myself as a left-winger until the politically correct loonies made me wonder.</p>
<p>umm-- Dros... the difference is that these women are scientists, for god's sake, so presumably they are not offended by data.</p>
<p>I suspect they werent offended by the data, but by Summers interpretation of it.</p>
<p>Yes, it was provocative for Summers to propose a theory as to why there are fewer women at top levels of science.... but it is ludicrous for a woman to be offended by his bringing up the fact that this is so.</p>
<p>I think you misrepresent what happened. He didnt just bring up the fact there are fewer women at top levels of science. He suggested that the reason for the fact had to do with some innate defect found generally in women. There is a big difference between stating the observable fact and then kicking all those women scientists in the face. </p>
<p>The data offends you? You're not much of a scientist.</p>
<p>But I do have a sense of common decency and respect. Ill take that over being a scientist any day of any week of any year.</p>
<p>We can argue about whether it's culture or sexism or hard-wiring or anything else that causes the difference, but it would be hard to look at the faculty of a university, or staff of a large research facility, or the personnel directory of a technology based company, and not to conclude that empirically, there are fewer women doing science.</p>
<p>Again, I dont think that is merely what summers did, at least not initially. What he did was something like saying It is a fact that most Jews hated Christ. It is a fact that Jews called for Christs death and pushed to make it happen. It is a fact that most Jews today still reject Christ. I hope I am proven wrong, but it could be that Jews have some innate disposition toward being Christ killers. That kind of thing is not just provocative. It goes right after living and breathing human beings who have feelings. I accept that Im just old fashioned and ignorant. I have no problem with admitting that. But I still say you can have your heartless science that insults people to their faces and that demands the people not protest and try to fight against it. </p>
<p>And frankly, it would have been hard to look at the top ranks of major Banks in the 1920's and 1930's and conclude that Jews ran the global banking system...</p>
<p>But not now, and claiming from this data that Jews are possibly satanic money-grubbers who may have a tendency to take down our country would be a stretch. Even if such a claim was made as a matter of enquiry, the fact that the leader of one of our top schools is pushing it would really cause doubts in a lot of people about the culture of a school that could accept such a man as its leader. It just seems to me your science would have me be quiet and happy as scientists tell me that people like me are genetically defective. Well, Im sorry. That aint gonna happen. Summers went wrong when he brashly went after this subject, apparently taking no heed that the people to whom he spoke were human beings first. Science. Yuck.</p>
<p>Whether it was because they couldn't get hired (true for most) or didn't have the "credentials" (Andover, Yale, or Exeter and Harvard-- true for many) is besides the point... there just weren't many, the social theories notwithstanding.</p>
<p>Summers was actually setting forth one of these theories as a possible explanation for the simple data. He even added that he would like nothing better than to be proven wrong suggesting that he had already accepted the theory as fact. Now, I think that ought to cause a lot of people to wonder about an institution that could stomach a guy like that as a leader. I mean, its fine to wonder aloud about this stuff, but it is just as fine for someone to be offended by it and decide to disassociate with someone who holds these views. Oh, but science says women are inferior, so that should end the discussion! I just reject this because I have read history and seen that the matter is really complex. All factors are not accounted for here and I really dont have enough faith in science to ever account for them, not as long as science is ruled by people too heartless to even know the factors exist. Since the matter is complex, I want to walk gingerly when dealing with the issue because I have a sincere respect and admiration of women everywhere. That respect just will not allow me to casually say some stuff. But hey, Im no scientist.</p>
<p>There's more than meets the eye. Remember, he is not hired and fired by the faculty, but by a very conservative blueblood Board of Overseers. I suspect ultimately he had to resign because he was too "Jewish", and that made them very uncomfortable. He was known to be uncomfortable with the Harvard clubs. He wanted to majorly increase low-income enrollments, Harvard having been close or at the bottom of the heap for a very long time, and in the zero-sum game of college admissions, that means fewer legacies and fewer rich kids. He was seen as having negative attitudes toward athletics. He couldn't get blue-blood alums to fork over big checks, at least in the amounts required or expected. He was seen as a bully in a culture that respects "consensus" (or at least not rocking the boat) perhaps above all else. They really do want a Derick Bok.</p>
<p>I think folks have it backwards. You need to remember who his bosses are.</p>
<p>just wanted to get this out there, mini, though i'm sure you didn't mean it the way i interpreted it.</p>
<p>lots of "major institutions" hire people with aspergers and other disabilities, for all types of positions. most of those hires manage not to lose tens of millions of their employer's money, make a signficant portion of the staff want to fire them, and make comments that offend people around the world. </p>
<p>whether or not Summers has asperger's (and while you're certainly not the only one who's suggested he might, i've never seen him say so and i doubt he's been formally diagnosed by a qualified clinician), it seems like he did a bad job. but he might have done a bad job anyway. and his resignation shouldn't close the door for other disabled people in leadership at colleges, or anywhere else.</p>
<p>
[quote]
He was seen as a bully in a culture that respects "consensus" (or at least not rocking the boat) perhaps above all else. They really do want a Derick Bok.
[/quote]
For once I agree with Mini. As Margeret Thatcher said, "consensus is the absence of leadership." It's very hard to herd cats, because cats are so catty. His biggest mistake was apologizing; that let the cats out of the bag.</p>
<p>"It's very hard to herd cats, because cats are so catty."</p>
<p>But it is very easy to herd sheep, mindless dumb sheep who, fearful of being called "politically correct" or "not much of a scientist" will accept anything and then think themselves rugged individualists (haha - the irony!).</p>
<p>I can't stand cats. But in this instance, I salute them.</p>
<p>
[quote]
It's about political correctness run amok
[/quote]
</p>
<p>PC is a fake issue. It is used by conservatives and all newspapers to actually avoid thinking about the issues being raised. People label things PC do so because it allows them to wallow in their own prejudices without taking responsibility for their actions. "Oh we don't have to deal with Black students objecting to fraternity slave auctions because they're just being PC." Or "we can call gay people homos or the like because anyone who objects is just being PC." Or "supporting Title IX athletics issues is just being PC." Or "Being inclusive and polite, fair, and offering a welcoming climate is just PC so we can ignore it."</p>
<p>tsdad--how about some attribution for those statements?</p>
<p>Mini:</p>
<p>Not the Board of Overseers. The Harvard Pres. reports to the Harvard Corporation Board, which is currently 6 members (the token black resigned in public disgust over Summers a few months ago) with strong Wall Street ties. The Corporate Board was in Summer's camp, especially when it came to the goal of wresting power from the schools and consolodating control in a central administration. They just reached the point where Summers had made so many enemies that they could no longer prop him up.</p>
<p>The whole "PC issue" had nothing to do with it.</p>
<p>Dros- you missed my point. YOU get to offended by Summers all you want-- my point was that the scientists in the audience don't get to play both sides of the fence, i.e I believe in empirical evidence unless it hurts my feelings. The fact that there are objective realities in life that are hurtful is-- well, a fact. Should Summers pretend that in two generations women have burst through the glass ceiling just because it is upsetting to some people that they very clearly have not?</p>
<p>"Not the Board of Overseers. The Harvard Pres. reports to the Harvard Corporation Board, which is currently 6 members (the token black resigned in public disgust over Summers a few months ago) with strong Wall Street ties."</p>
<p>Right. And they have the bull in the china shop who doesn't approve of their clubs, threatens their legacy admissions (and "cheapens the Harvard name), doesn't shmooze well, dislikes athletics, and brings public disdain, and disdain of the faculty toward their own institution? (If anything, he was much too PC - "too Jewish" - for their liking, when it came to the things that really count.)</p>
<p>"tsdad--how about some attribution for those statements?"</p>
<p>I can't speak for tsdad's literal statements, but I can probably compile PLENTY of statements that strike me as just as insensitive.</p>
<p>Cartoon Censorship Blamed on 'Politically Correct White Mentality'
<a href="http://www.cnsnews.com/ViewCulture.asp?Page=%5CCulture%5Carchive%5C200209%5CCUL20020927b.html%5B/url%5D">http://www.cnsnews.com/ViewCulture.asp?Page=%5CCulture%5Carchive%5C200209%5CCUL20020927b.html</a></p>
<p>Just imagine showing this stuff on television in its original form. It was awfully brutal. I grew up seeing much of it and was stabbed to the hilt by it, and yet tons of people are claiming it should be sent across the public airways so that my kids can feel the same rejection by our culture that I myself have experienced. This is not a matter of political correctness. It ought to be a matter of just plain good ol fashioned down home correctness. But lots of people are just dismissing it as "political correctness".</p>
<p>Banned Blackface, Gender Bending
<a href="http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,125315,00.html%5B/url%5D">http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,125315,00.html</a></p>
<p>Here is a white guy who makes a living telling jokes in blackface. In this article the, promoter of the show, David Stallings, wondered why it's offensive when white comedians portray people of other races but not offensive when it's the other way around. What this guy here is doing is what people all over America are doing when they try to dismiss this stuff. He is really saying that the people who are offended are just being politically correct and the proof of it is that they dont get offended when a black guy dresses in whiteface.</p>
<p>Well, that is no proof at all because we have no ugly history in this country of a whole nation of blacks openly ridiculing poor, uneducated, and enslaved whites on stages all across the country. When blacks see blackface, they are reminded of Jim Crow because it was the blackfaced character Jim Crow whose name went on all he laws that made discrimination legal after Reconstruction. Many blacks are alive today who have felt the sting of that discrimination. What history exists that would make whites generally offended by Eddie Murphy dressing as a white guy? I don't defend any of it, by the way. I just think the matter is really complex where blackface is concerned, and that dismissing it as a matter of "political correctness" is a cop out.</p>
<p>Plenty of college students do this stuff, and plenty people have dismissed protests against it as mere "political correctness". Personally, I think it is best to consider the view of the next guy and try to earn his respect and friendship. I also think you don't do this by carelessly making fun of him or saying the kinds of stuff Larry Summers said.</p>
<p>But that's just me.</p>
<p>"Personally, this stuff has changed my view of Harvard. My kid still loves the school, claiming the public misunderstands Summers. "</p>
<p>Drosslemier, to paraphrase Henry Higgins, why can't a father be more like his son?</p>
<p>Dros- you missed my point. YOU get to offended by Summers all you want-- my point was that the scientists in the audience don't get to play both sides of the fence, i.e I believe in empirical evidence unless it hurts my feelings.</p>
<p>I dont think this is what the scientists were doing at all, blossom. They were probably reacting viscerally against this notion that the empirical evidence supported Summers view.</p>
<p>The fact that there are objective realities in life that are hurtful is-- well, a fact. Should Summers pretend that in two generations women have burst through the glass ceiling just because it is upsetting to some people that they very clearly have not?</p>
<p>No, but he ought not claim they havent burst through because they are defective at least not when there are still millions of men who are downright dweebs and yet who in many cases influence the decisions dealing with female promotions. Summers is probably a fine guy. And my daughter is probably right that he is misunderstood. I just think he needed to be sensitive to others around him.</p>
<p>"Drosslemier, to paraphrase Henry Higgins, why can't a father be more like his son?"</p>
<p>The son is still a lot younger, and therefore hasn't seen as much crap as the father.</p>
<p>
[quote]
They were probably reacting viscerally against this notion that the empirical evidence supported Summers view.
[/quote]
But this just reinforces the problems inherent to "the reaction": Summers didn't say that this was his view; nor did he say that empirical evidence supported "the view." He mentioned that there was a study, undertaken by real scientists, of both sexes, that had some potentially important information, that real scientists might want to examine and refute. Real scientists might have chosen to hit the USC study out of the park; instead, they chose hissy-fits. Which speaks poorly of Harvard, MIT, and all the other institutions wherein faculty members chose agit-prop over scholarship.</p>
<p>There are several threads on this topic in the Harvard forum.</p>
<p>(some of )You follks are soooooo off base.</p>
<p>Why can you not understand that Summer's departure has NOTHING to do with being politically/socially right, left, up, down or inside out. The whole mess is about management style.</p>
<p>Universities are supposed to be tolerant, collegial institutions. Summers approached Harvard like a new CEO would a company. He tolerated little dissent, pushed out those that disagreed with him, and brought in people in his own agressive image. </p>
<p>This did not sit well at Harvard, and it would not sit well at any other university. University leadership is about building consensus, and it takes a subtle leadership style to effect major change in an academic environment. Larry lacked this subtlety. So he's out.</p>
<p>I'm always fascinated, and more than a bit frightened, by those folks (including the editors of the WSJ0 who incessantly polarize any issue along political measures.</p>
<p>I don't think this issue is polarized along political lines, really. Dershowitz is certainly not a man of the Right (nor is Summers!). I think the entrenched bureaucracy is the issue. Summers was brought in to shake it up, stepped on some "indispensable" toes, and when faced with a counter-charge, wilted. Too bad. I think the same thing is happening at the CIA right now, with Porter Goss playing the role Larry was supposed to play....without chickening out.</p>
<p>Carly Fiorina, Carly Fiorina, Carly Fiorina.</p>
<p>Oh yeah, I said that already.</p>