College Profs Should Teach, Not Preach

Front Page Magazine ^ | 3-24-2005 | David Horowitz

[Pendragon_6]

By now, we've all heard how Harvard President Lawrence Summers, a former member of President Clinton's Cabinet and a distinguished scholar in his own right, made a politically incorrect point at a faculty seminar recently.

One feminist professor stormed out of the room, and before you knew it, activists were clamoring for Summers' resignation. Soon after, he embarked on an apology tour for even raising the point that aroused them.

If the president of Harvard cannot raise intellectual questions in a university setting without jeopardizing his job, what does that tell you about the state of higher education in America? It tells you that American universities are in trouble. They are less free than they were in the McCarthy era (when I was in school), and something must be done to rectify the situation.

Two years ago, I drafted an Academic Bill of Rights that would defend "intellectual diversity" on college campuses and remove politics from the classroom. The idea has steadily gained traction as the public and, indeed, legislators hear what's happening at universities across the country.

Continued

[Bluegrass Conservative]

I must have missed something. What was the comment that was made?

[kevkrom]

I must have missed something. What was the comment that was made?

Don't have the exact quote, but Summers broached the subject that the reason there are fewer women in the maths and sciences might have something to do with innate ability. The asinine part of all of this is that his statements were in the context of, "so, what can we do about this", as in, how to get more women into those fields.