THE TRAVESTY AT HARVARE FINALE
THE TRAVESTY AT HARVARD: SUMMERS
THROWS IN THE TOWEL
by
Ken Eliasberg
Was Summers’ collision with West his last accident? Unfortunately, no—his next was a real gender bender. No sooner had he been severely chastened by the racial aspect of political correctness, when he ran into the next leg on the stool of politically correct radical liberalism today—feminism!
Speaking at a conference held by the National Bureau of Economic Research on the subject of why there is a lack of proportional gender representation in the higher education ranks in the fields of math and science, Summers suggested as one possible area of study in endeavoring to answer this question that researchers look into the possibility that certain inherent difference in the sexes might—just might, mind you—provide a possible explanation. Think about that—men and women might be different. Duh! One has to go to Harvard to figure that out. In any event, as innocent as Summers’s suggestion might seem, it was traumatic to one of the female attendees—a professor from M.I.T., Nancy Hopkins. She indicated that she had to leave the hall or else she would have either passed out or vomited. Think about that for a moment as well—these tough feminists traumatized by the thought that men and women might be possessed of some innate differences that just might—might mind you - influence their academic orientation—so tough, mind you, that the mere suggestion of such differences with possibly differing attendant consequences gave this poor, fragile woman the vapors.
As George Will observed in his January 27, 2005 online column for the Washington Post (entitled Harvard Hysterics) re Summers’ comments on gender—“He thought he was speaking in a place that encourages uncircumscribed intellectual explorations. He was not. He was on a university campus.” A sad but telling commentary on what all too frequently passes for scholarship on university campuses today.
Again Ms. Hopkins is a feminist—you know, one of those I-am- woman,-hear-me roar-kinda ladies—one of those women who are so tough that, in the words of Gloria Steinhem, that they need a husband like a fish needs a bicycle. And she gets the vapors over a suggestion so tame that it barely registers on the sensibililty screen—let alone the fact that the suggestion finds almost overwhelming scientific support. And this woman is teaching biology at one of our most reputable institutions of higher learning?
By the way, it is worth noting in passing that proportional gender representation is just a euphemism for quotas—the method by which the egalitarian left has consistently equated equality of opportunity with equality of outcome.
Well for this gender transgression all hell broke loose in the hallowed halls of higher education, i.e. at M.I.T. (where this somewhat fragile nincompoop is a professor in biology) and, of course, at Harvard (where Summers was already under fire from the Department of Arts and Sciences).
To atone for this sin, Summers took the next big step in what had become his two-step grovel; he saw to it that Harvard would allocate $50 million to explore diversity issues, again a code name for quotas.
These were not Summers’s only sins; he further alienated the faculty of the Department of Arts & Sciences by doing the following:
1. On arriving at Harvard, he let the student body know that he
appeared to do what has become unacceptable at institutions of higher learning—support America. Specifically, he indicated his support for the school’s ROTC program; stated that patriotism was a word “used too infrequently” at universities; and, in June 2002, he spoke at the ROTC
commissioning ceremony. In the words of Ben Shapiro in his Feb. 22, 2006 column on townhall.com—“naturally, that led certain professors to question his leadership ability - - backing ROTC’s presence on campus and uttering the forbidden word, “patriotism,” was like waving a red cape before the bull that is the Harvard faculty.” By the way, a failure of patriotism is not a failing peculiar to Harvard; it is prevalent in the overwhelming percentage of social studies and history departments in this country (who seem to find it easier to support communism, radicalism, or just about any “ism” other than capitalism or patriotism).
2. He also spoke out against Harvard’s massive grade inflation—apparently, in excess of 90% of Harvard’s students graduate with honors.
What does that tell you about the real meaning of “honors?” And, consistent with bleeding heart left-wing sensibilities, what does that tell you about the poor 10% who don’t get honors? Really!
3. He followed this up with an expression of disapproval of a policy that appeared to have found considerable faculty support—campus divestment from Israel. As Ben Shapiro puts it: “Then, in September 2002, Summers made the speech that likely stamped his presidency DOA: He explained that those stumping for divestment from Israel on campus were