Furor Lingers as Harvard Chief Gives Details of Talk on Women

NY Times ^ | February 18, 2005 | SARA RIMER and PATRICK D. HEALY

[neverdem]

Transcript: Harvard President's Remarks

I haven't read the transcript. I'm a white male chauvinist devil. This is all about PC.

[sinkspur]

Poor Summers. He's being hoisted on the petard that comes with being a Democrat.

[Congressman Billybob]

President Summers told the truth in an off-the-record meeting. Now he is being flayed for selected quotes taken out of context. It is impossible to satisfy the academic bigots. Keep in mind that this dates back to Dr. Summers making the obvious point that Dr. Cornel West should do the same sort and amount of research as other professors at Harvard.

The so-called great universities of this nation are, apparently, headed into a policy-driven decline just like the so-called major broadcast networks. In their blindness, they stumble into progressive failure.

But it will take much longer for Harvard, Yale and Princeton to fail, than ABC, CBS and NBC. Why? The networks do not have any endowments, to keep them running when they aren't doing the jobs for which they were created.

Congressman Billybob

Latest column, Confessions of a "Salivating Moron"

[little jeremiah]

These fools are living in a fools' world.

Anyone who thinks that women and men have exactly the same kinds of aptitudes and intelligence are hiding from reality. Of course there are some greatly scientific minds among women, and some wonderful nurturer types among men.

But taken as general populations, men and women have their differences. This used to be understood. Now people have gone insane. Now girls are taught in school that to have as their goal in life to be good wives and mothers is nothing more than enslavement; girls should aspire to be soccer players, attorneys, and engineers. Boys are taught to repress their competitive spirit and natural male energy, and instead train to be nurses, seamstresses and day care providers.

[Fido969]

This is all about the fems trying to exercise power. They learned from the Martha Burke escapade that they can not threaten a strong-minded person who might tell them to pound sand - if they did they would look weak and silly. So they pummel poor little Larry Summers who is so invested in the PC claptrap that he can not stray a millimeter from the PC dogma. As such, he remains a stationary target for the small-minded of the loony left who can now leisurely count coup as they each try to be the most "outraged" over the whole deal.

This is the elites example of a "show trial". Not many of these useless ivory tower clods could survive a battle of wits unless their opponent was forbidden to resist.

You might also wonder any one of these little dog-turds would ever take Prof. Churchill to task on his stupid comments.

You can see that they now believe that policy should drive science, rather than the other way around.

[goldstategop]

If this uproar proves anything, its that the Left will brook no challenge to PC orthodoxy. Ironically, the greatest source of hostility to open inquiry and the free exchange of ideas is the post-modern university. It should be more accurately labeled a center for political indoctrination.

Denny Crane: "There are two places to find the truth. First God and then Fox News."

[cherry]

"relatively low number of women in the sciences to the numbers of Catholics in investment banking"

there's a low number relatively of Catholics in investment banking for the same reason every other motel or foodmart or gas station is owned by Indians or Pakistanis.....

overall, Summers sounds more and more like a Nazi.....

[BroncosFan]

Full disclosure: I graduated from there a while back. Cornel West practically ran a racket out of the BS Department. Spiffy new digs, tons of money, more staffers than classes, brain dead courses, "celebrity" profs who barely worked. Nary a scholarly paper was ever produced by West, but he and his minions were rolling in funds under Prozac Neil Rudenstine (the previous President, who had a midterm breakdown after which he repaired to the Caribbean for a lil' R&R). He often traveled around campus with a cadre of young goons (who I once referred to in print as his Praetorian Guard of Homies, which got me denounced by Dr. Bucktooth in The Crimson).

Larry finally called the good Dr. West's bluff and West decamped for Central Jersey CC thus earning the lefties' contempt. Add to that the fact that he's spoken in favor of ROTC returning to campus and he's in trouble even without this pretty innocent comment. And notice how he even made sure to inoculate himself with the standard PC platitudes ("I hope I'm wrong about this. . ." "We need to combat inequality . . .").

[neverdem]

Thanks for the blog!

[cherry]

" train to be nurses, seamstresses and day care providers"

hate to nitpick but a nurse is not a daycare worker or a seamstress....

as a matter of fact, lots of men are becoming nurses...mostly when they are older....when they lose their typical "male" job....for one reason.....the money.....

[Capriole]

Anyone who thinks that women and men have exactly the same kinds of aptitudes and intelligence are hiding from reality. Of course there are some greatly scientific minds among women, and some wonderful nurturer types among men. But taken as general populations, men and women have their differences.

I'm a reasonably intelligent woman. I did my graduate work in neuroscience at a major university medical school. When I took ordinary med school courses like physiology, biochemistry, and anatomy, side by side with the male medical students, I did fine. But when I got into neuroanatomy I found that I didn't have the mental ability to rotate the brain in three dimensions and see all of its different components and pathways as sectioned and from various angles. Could not do it well enough to be a professional. Could not. To this day I can't do that sort of thing. I'm a good carpenter too but I can't cope an interior dentillated cornice molding to save my life, either. It's the same principle and I can't do it. My brain won't work that way. So I went into neuropharmacology/physiology instead and I was fine. You can count the number of good female neuroanatomists on the fingers of one hand and have a couple of fingers left over.

[JohnnyZ]

You can count the number of good female neuroanatomists on the fingers of one hand and have a couple of fingers left over.

Hey! I was a math major. I bet I can work that one out ....

[heleny]

All that really matters in determining whether or not he is a good school president is his effectiveness at bringing money to the school.

The quotes of what he said sound reasonable and do not sound disrespectful.

[patton]

Keep spinnin', Grandpa. It's cold out, and we need the electricity.

[Question Liberal Authority]

he argued that bias could not entirely explain the lack of diversity in the sciences.

Considering that the Male to Female ratio at a Star Trek convention is like 50 to 1, he might have a point there.

[Solar Wind]

"He theorized that a "much higher fraction of married men" than married women were willing to work 80-hour weeks to attain "high powered" jobs."

Often those high powered jobs and 80 hour weeks are not for the prestige but for the money. Ironically men do not do it to put down women but to support them.

On Dennis Prager recently I heard Warren Farrell interviewed. He is the author of "Why Men Earn More". His compelling argument is that most married men are self sacrificing and take on all sorts of jobs and hours to support their families. That is why men build the Alaska pipeline and most women do not. They don't do it for the self fulfillment but for the money to support their families.

Mr Sol.

[little jeremiah]

No doubt there are always exceptions to every general rule. But, generally speaking, women make better mothers than men.

And men make better cops than women.

And you outsmart me in the science field, no doubt about that.

[patton]

You know the best thing about the Matrix?

I could show you what math really is.

I am serious - I killed myself, for years, trying to explain something that can only be seen.

It is art...if you can see it.

[MississippiMan]

It's time--way PAST time, to be accurate--for someone to stand up and tell these morons to go jump in the lake. Everytime someone on a liberal hate-list opens their mouth, liberals are looking for something to hammer them with. When they find some irrelevant crap like this, the person always apologizes, which is the WORST thing they could possibly do. An apology to liberals is like pouring blood into shark-filled waters. (Remember Trent Lott?)

Someone has to be the first to laugh in their pathetic faces and turn and walk away. It's been made perfectly clear that the majority in this country doesn't share their goofy worldviews, but they're still allowed to dictate as if they have a mandate because no one will stand up to them.

MM

[Trinity_Tx]

This poor man. He said nothing wrong at all, IMO.

The scientific fact is that our brains and men's brains have different *tendencies* -- and the issue of family/mothering interrupting women's careers is undeniable.

If what they quoted was the worst he said, then this "outrage" is absurd. Typical of leftist thinking -- we must at least pretend that everyone is "equal" in all things.

Sad.