I'm guessing: silver and turquoise jewelry, flannel shirts and sensible shoes.
Posted on 02/09/2007 2:18:20 PM PST by Caleb1411
The feminist takeover of Harvard is imminent. The Harvard Crimson reported yesterday that the university is about to name as its new president Drew Gilpin Faust, dean of the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study. Harvard’s Corporation, which is likely to recommend Faust to the university’s Board of Overseers for confirmation, could not have more clearly repudiated Lawrence Summers’s all-too-brief reign of meritocracy and academic honesty, or more openly signaled that Harvard will now be the leader in politically correct victimology.
Faust runs one of the most powerful incubators of feminist complaint and nonsensical academic theory in the country. You can count on the Radcliffe Institute’s fellows and invited lecturers to proclaim the “constructed” nature of knowledge, gender, and race, and to decry endemic American sexism and racism. Typical guest speakers include left-wing journalists Susan Faludi and Barbara Ehrenreich. At Radcliffe, Faludi argued that 9/11 had triggered yet another “backlash against feminism,” while Ehrenreich lectured on “Weird Science: Challenging Sexist Ideology Since the 1970s.” It is received truth among Radcliffe Institute lecturers that obstacles throughout American society block women’s progress. Radcliffe speaker Rebecca Walker, for example, has created the “I Spy Sexism” initiative, which asks young women between the ages of 15 and 30 to keep logs of the “sexism, racism, and homophobia” that they see as they walk down the street or go to a movie.
With typical feminist hypocrisy, Faust has managed to wield massive power even as she rues female powerlessness. She headed the Task Force on Women Faculty, created after the firestorm over Summers’s recklessly honest speculations about women in science, that strengthened the feminist hold on faculty hiring and promotions. The Task Force won a $50 million commitment to increase faculty “diversity efforts” at Harvard, notwithstanding that for decades the university has tied itself in knots trying to increase female and black faculty representation. Faust’s Task Force also muscled into existence a remarkable new bureaucratic sinecure: the Senior Vice Provost for Diversity and Faculty Development. This new official sits with the president, the provost, and the deans of faculties, in order to push “diversity” quotas in every corner of the university’s academic operations. Naturally, Harvard gave the new position to one of Faust’s two co-chairs on the Task Force: Evelyn Hammonds, a professor of the history of science, and of African and African-American studies, who specializes in discerning bias against minority women in science and medicine. (Please do not question how Hammonds’s unobstructed rise through the most elite American universities comports with her thesis of pervasive discrimination against black women.)
Should the Board of Overseers confirm Faust, the Senior Vice Provost for Diversity that she created will be even more redundant than before. Expect a constant push for ever greater female and minority representation throughout the university, backed up by academic “research” showing widespread discrimination against those favored beneficiaries—research unclouded by the fact that women now run many of the nation’s most prestigious universities. Unbiased inquiry into why certain groups may not enjoy proportional representation in scientific and technical fields, of the sort that Summers engaged in to his demise, will be even more proscribed. This triumph of feminist ideology is a tragedy not just for Harvard, but for the American academic world, which will undoubtedly follow Harvard’s lead in elevating feminist politics to premier intellectual standing.
Er, sorry for that. I first pushed post, and nothing happened, so I pushed it again.
I heard that all 83 members of NOW were waiting for the announcement with bated breath.
Bad news. Harvard is a hugely endowed powerhouse, despite all its problems, and a lot of bright kids go through it. I could see this coming when Larry Summers was forced to resign. The university has been deteriorating ever since the 60s, but there are still some very bright people there as well as the usual idiots. Mary Ann Glendon, for instance.
As it happens, I know Jamie Houghton, the head of the presidential search committee. He was the head of Corning Glass. He's a decent guy, but I suspect he was boxed in by this situation and probably had no other choice.
As an alumnus, I got the usual letter from him asking for recommended candidates. But I didn't bother to answer it because I figured there was no point. It was a done deal that they would get some postmodernist-Marxist-feminist stooge, and apparently they did.
I also know a couple of people on the Board of Overseers, a small group that is supposed to insulate them from the politics of the Trustees. I very much doubt they will throw themselves into the fire and turn down this recommendation.
True...but his undergraduate degree is from Harvard,which did expel him for a time after having been caught cheating on a Spanish exam.
To he$$ with Harvard. Make it an all girls school and let the cat fights begin.
Another nail in the coffin for Harvard's reputation in academia.
Not that it hasn't slipped enough already.
On a not-too-tangential note, you might be interested in this Weekly Standard article: Unfair Harvard: the Scandal of Admissions to Elite Universities.
Right. Womyn don't build fences. Only hegemonic males do.
Everything the left gains control of is eventually destroyed. It’s preordained.
We need look no further than the MSM for a perfect example.
This destruction creates opportunities for those with the foreknowledge of the pending devastation.
No. Guilty on ANY thread.
Whack her, maybe. Hit it? No way in hell.
LOL!!! Sad......what does Rush say..."Feminism was created for ugly women".
I'm guessing: silver and turquoise jewelry, flannel shirts and sensible shoes.
I'm not surprised at this news, after the report of the curriculum revision. I did a little research and I am convinced that the revision has to do with instituting a postmodernist philosophy to the whole university, including the law school. The law school has stated that they are changing the emphasis of the freshman year away from precedent to a broader view, including world law and opinions. (Sound familar?)
I also decided to look into postmodern courses at the University of WA, and I came across a lecture on feminists cloning. I took that to mean in order to avoid giving birth for whatever reason.
I am sure that this is all in reaction to Larry Summers remarks regarding women and science. Oh, there were tons of lectures in the postmodern women's studies area about women in science, one about Black women in science and privacy, that I thought sounded amusing.
Anyway, if you have a white son, don't send him to Harvard, because it's going to be worse than Duke.
I knew she would look like that. They seem to have become their own sub species of human.
Boy, and to think when Harvard was started it was to educate clergy. Now they have lowered down to this.And this is considered progress.
I'm stunned: she is actually married to a man. Of course, he is a college professor, too.
Oh. My. God. What a ugly dyke. If not, she should be.
My bet is against this Radcliff lesbo becoming Harvard President. Harvard is loony but not that loony
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