Posted on 01/20/2005 3:23:30 PM PST by swilhelm73
WASHINGTON -- The present acrimonious controversy that Lawrence H. Summers, the president of Harvard University, finds himself in reminds me of something I have suspected for years. The First Amendment's guarantee of free speech is a reactionary blight inimical to all true progressives and certain to be formally eliminated from the Constitution as soon as progressives again gain ascendancy.
There have been times when progressives, or liberals as they are often called, championed free speech, for instance, in the early days of the Cold War and during youthful protests in the 1960s. In the early days of the Cold War progressives favored the right of Communists to denounce America as they often did, particularly on college campuses. In the 1960s progressives favored the right of youthful idealists to use the F-word. At the University of California at Berkeley, something called the Free Speech Movement rose up dedicated to the freest possible use of the F-word. So successful were these idealists that I am told today on college campuses the F-word is often employed by professors in their lectures, often as a punctuation mark. I think I learned that from Tom Wolfe's new book I Am Charlotte Simmons.
Now times have changed and progressives are the most prominent opponents of free speech, especially on campus. This has gotten Summers in his present predicament. He is not keeping up with intellectual fashion. Some years ago he created an enormous furor by denouncing anti-Semitism as it is practiced on campus. Then he made bold to state that a Harvard faculty member's scholarly writing was not very scholarly. Now he has said that there are "innate" differences between men and women. He said this at a scholarly meeting. There were progressives there. They were furious.
At a meeting of the National Bureau of Economic Research in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where the condition of women in academia was the topic, Summers said that the comparative lack of women in the sciences might be explained by a number of things -- social practices and genetics were two. It is a fact that though girls score about the same as boys in the median range of standardized math and science tests, girls are less likely to score in the highest ranges. It is also a fact that women scientists are infrequently responsible for major scientific discoveries. Possibly, said Summers, this is because of their child-bearing responsibilities or other cultural norms, but he had to add the possibility the difference in achievement might be because men and women do not have the same chromosomes. That did it. Summers moved from being a free-thinker to being a health threat.
Said a biology professor in attendance, Professor Nancy Hopkins, "I felt I was going to be sick." And she offered grisly details: "My heart was pounding and my breath was shallow….I was extremely upset." As for the issue Summers raised, Hopkins said: "That's the kind of insidious, destructive, unthought-through [?] attitude that causes a lot of harm….It's one thing for an ordinary person to shoot his [not his/her?] mouth like that, but quite another for a top educational leader."
Well, Summers probably will not make that mistake again, if he wants to remain a "top educational leader." From the reports I read of the meeting only about half the women professors were offended by Summers. One, an economist named Claudia Goldin, actually told the Washington Post, "I left with a sense of elation at his ideas." She is proud that Summers "retains an inquisitive mind." How very old-fashioned.
For years now there have been things that one simply cannot say in the presence of progressives. The possibility that men and women have different aptitudes is one of those things. There are others. This means, of course, that there are things progressives are unlikely to hear. When they do hear them they are astonished and, as Professor Hopkins demonstrates, physically convulsed.
That progressives rarely hear ideas displeasing to them I think explains their present dazed condition regarding the drift of American society. It also explains their anger. What is to be their fate? Allow me a suggestion, unwelcome though it may be. They are going to go to their graves dazed and angry and thinking they are right. They are going to cause a great deal of unpleasantness but they are going to disappear. The First Amendment will outlast them all. They have seen their last ascendancy.
Uh oh. Incoming.
Any libs reading this article and refusing to believe empirical evidence should read "Brain Sex" my Mohr and Jessel concerning the innate differences between the sexes. There are other books on the subject, but this is the best I've read. Dear libs, you can only keep your heads stuck up your er, uh, ahem sandbox for so long.
The women who were complaining have advanced degrees in math and science. Why shouldn't they speak up?
What happened to Summers is someone criticized him. Let's not be like liberals and equate criticism to censorship.
Speak up, sure.
By getting all emotional and saying they didn't know whether to throw up or pass out, just shows them in a bad light.
Do they have any data that supports their position? Or do they just demand that no one says anything that upsets them?
They have the degrees, now, what major discovery or advancement in the sciences or math have they made?
They were actually bursting into tears. SHHH!
"Let's not be like liberals and equate criticism to censorship."
True, it is not censorship, it is political correctness.
WEEPING WOMEN IN THE IVORY TOWER
http://www.michellemalkin.com/
By Michelle Malkin · January 17, 2005 08:20 AM
Harvard University President Lawrence Summers gave a provocative talk last Friday on innate gender differences and the reasons for the dearth of female professors in science and engineering at elite universities.
According to the Boston Globe, the first point Summers touched on was the reluctance or inability of women who have children to work 80-hour weeks. The second point was that fewer girls than boys have top scores on science and math tests in late high school years. Summers' third point addressed discrimination. Summers noted that if discrimination was the main factor limiting the advancement of women in science and engineering, then a school that does not discriminate would gain an advantage by hiring away the top women who were discriminated against elsewhere.
Because that doesn't seem to be a widespread phenomenon, Summers said, according to the Globe, ''the real issue is the overall size of the pool, and it's less clear how much the size of the pool was held down by discrimination."
Summers made clear that he was simply throwing out theories, summarizing scholarly research, and not himself endorsing any particular hypothesis. So, how did women academics respond to a challenging intellectual discussion? By having a collective emotional snit fit unbecoming of any self-respecting representative of the ivory tower. From the Globe:
Nancy Hopkins, a biologist at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, walked out on Summers' talk, saying later that if she hadn't left, ''I would've either blacked out or thrown up."
If that is how Professor Hopkins is training her female students to respond to rigorous academic debate, the fewer of them the better.
A better response would have been, "He has a right to his opinion. I know what I've done in my life and what I've achieved. That speaks for itself and what one person says isn't going to affect me one way or the other. " I do not know about their achievements, but if I was in their place, I would have had to say something.
That's ridiculous. Crying? There are more important things to cry about.
good article... pursuing advanced degrees takes time and money.
Do the feminazi's know that? (What happened to Gloria Steinam and Patricia Ireland? No, really. WHO is the new voice of feminism? I haven't heard from her!)
Those hypocrits went to ground when Clinton did what they have told us all along was sexual descrimination. I think I saw Patricia Ireland on LinkTV a week or so ago... I tune in to Democracy Now for a good laugh now and then.
Prof. Summers is screwed either way. I have only my own experience to base this on, but I have been blessed with an incredible understanding of all things science and mathmatic. I have nothing but an incredible respect for Newton, Aristotle and that German guy who's name escapes me. I topped out in math and science in high school and college, but I found my fulfillment as a Nurse. I have worked in Intensive Care, the O. R., Hospice and currently in Outpatient Surgery. Tomorrow I may decide to work in Psych, Peds, Admin, or who knows? Maybe I should have been a math teacher, I tutored many through, but it just didn't do it for me. Maybe women have the ability, but not the aptitude to spend their time in such a poorly personally rewarding area.
I have a theory. The reduced corpus callosum in men forces them to harmonize their brain hemispheres more through external activity.
"that German guy who's name escapes me"
Hitler?
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