Larry Summers is an extremely smart guy who said some extremely stupid things about women and science at a conference. For this and many other reasons (mostly “other,” but it’s a messy story), he lost the confidence of Harvard’s faculty and eventually resigned. And good riddance; for all of his talents and all the good he did for Harvard, he caused more harm by antagonizing people and generally playing the autocrat when the office of university president calls for something more subtle.
Which doesn’t mean that he should be banned in perpetuity from giving talks to university audiences. A recent invitation from the University of California Regents has been rescinded after a group of UC faculty circulated a petition demanding that Summers be disinvited. Whether or not you had any sympathy for what Summers said at the NBER conference (I certainly don’t), he is a serious academic, and should be accorded the usual protections for saying what he thinks. Bitch PhD is wondering about the situation, and here’s the comment I left at her blog:
I think the disinvitation was a bad idea, on substantive grounds as well as for the bad image it projects.
For one thing, the proposition that innate differences play a large role in determining the distribution of genders (and races) throughout academia is certainly controversial — it’s not just a matter of scholarly vs. otherwise. There are smart and well-informed people who believe that innate differences are the most important thing suppressing the number of women in science; Stephen Pinker is an obvious example. I personally think those people are crazy and wrong, but won’t deny that they are smart and well-informed.
Second and more importantly, it’s just wrong to think of Summers as symbolizing prejudice. Although there are smart and well-informed prejudiced people per above, Summers was certainly not well-informed when he made his comments at the NBER conference. He has since apologized profusely and allocated millions of dollars toward making things better. It all may be perfectly insincere, but when there are plenty of actual sexists out there who are willing to defend such positions even when they are well-informed, it seems like a mistake to hold that the only possible role Larry Summers can play is buffoonish sexist. He does have other things on his CV.
Finally, I haven’t seen any evidence that Summers was actually invited to talk about gender or science or anything like that. If he were, that would be evidence of rank stupidity (of which the Regents are of course well-known masters).
Among the “image” problems alluded to above, stuff likes this makes it possible for conservatives to beat the drum of leftist intolerance of other people’s views. Ironically, the incident comes on the same week of a much more serious violation of academic freedom: UC Irvine’s withdrawal of a the offer of the job of Dean at its brand new law school, to Duke constitutional scholar Erwin Chemerinsky. That act, which has apparently been reversed so that Chemerinsky can in fact be the Dean, resulted from right-wing pressure against a professor who they thought was too liberal. Becoming the Dean is a noticeably bigger deal than giving a dinner-time talk to the UC Regents. Nevertheless, the Summers flap has given conservatives the chance to argue that “the primary challenge facing academic freedom in American universities” is “the rise of an academic far-left establishment that seeks to use universities as a base for political activism, and is perfectly willing to violate accepted standards of academic freedom to achieve that goal.” And they’ve taken it!
Well, if we go around disinviting speakers because we disagree with their views, we deserve what we get. In the wake of Summers’s original speech, there was much heat, but also a good deal of light — data and arguments were produced that showed to any reasonable person that women interested in science face extraordinary amounts of discrimination at all steps of the process. Let’s stick with the “data and arguments” approach.
Ian B. Gibson,
Good catch on the Voltaire misquote, thanks for the correction. Though from what I can gather Evelyn B. Hall was summing up Voltaire’s attitude on the matter. In any event we apparently need to be reminded of such things from time to time.
re: Summers memo at World Bank
It is amazing that given this he was appointed at Harvard in the first place. Obviously somebody didn’t do their homework.
To CV readers, its worth clicking on this to read the 1st paragraph to see exactly what type of person we are dealing with here.
But that doesn’t mean he shouldn’t be allowed to speak.
e.
I think you could get around the problem of trying to prove a negative by simply studying whether or not innate differences explain none, some, or all of the gender disparity seen in industry and academic science.
You will find ALL KINDS of studies, and if any consenus can reasonably be drawn, it’s that there’s no satisfying answer. At all. My read of the literature, vs. the response to it, given the self-proclaimed individual affinities for data pro, con, or metza-metza, is that the field is so politically hyperbaric that any hope of good science seeing the light of day is nonexistent. And for that reason, politics will prevail. I think the most responsible take on it is complete agnosticism from a scientific standpoint. From a sociological one, there’s precisely zero incentive not to afford each and every person the dignity required to let them reach their full potential, without prejudging their performance.
Chanda, the point is not whether Larry Summers is a good person or has good opinions. The point is that disinviting people from giving talks because you disagree with them is an odious strategy. If someone with whom you disagree is giving a highly visible talk, use the opportunity to educate people about the issues. Fight falsehood by telling the truth, not by trying to silence.
Low Math,
I couldn’t agree more. The example I like to use is the NBA, where the overwhelming number of players are African American. Does it point to some innate (yes I’ll say the forbidden word “genetic”) advantage in the African American population? Perhaps? Does it mean from a sociological point of view we should “discourage” whites from trying to play in the NBA? Absolutely not. That is why we as a society must not discourage anyone from trying to reach their full potential in any field they choose to pursue based on “innate” catagorizations.
(obviously Larry Bird is a pretty good counterexample.)
e.
There is some good news here
Columbia University is resisting the political pressure to disinvite Ahmadinejad.
We’ve had three high-profile cases in the last few weeks:
1. Summers
2. Chemerinsky
3. Ahmadinejad
In two of these, right-wingers objected but were ultimately over-ruled. In the third, left-wingers objected and prevailed. While the statistics certainly aren’t adequate to draw any conclusions. the PR is pretty clear. Ouch!
In the third, left-wingers objected and prevailed. If by this, one assumes that a right-wing leaning UC Board of Regents (consider the sheer number of GOP appointed members) acted in the interest of the left because 150 out of thousands of faculty and staff signed their names to a petition asking that Summers not speak at the UC Regents dinner????
I’m not defending the original choice to invite Summers, just questioning the petition calling for his disinvitation.
This statement, of course, does not call into the question the very right that each and everyone of us citizens in the US has to draft and circulate petitions representing our political sensitivities and sentiments. I believe you will find that listed in the First Amendment, but then, by now, that “god-damned worthless piece of paper” probably has been trampled into unreadability. The question for me it seems, is not whether the petitioners acted in some way irresponsible (they, like all the rest of us, have a right to be offensive and/or foolish), but that the Board of Regents themselves chose to act in a way that presumes that the petition was the principle matter in the first place.
If ever there was a pall on free expression then i would nominate yesterday’s US Senate vote as a dangerous foreboding on the public commons:
spyder,
I agree. The Senate apparently can’t agree on stopping an illegal/immoral war costing hundreds of billions of dollars and thousands of lives, but they can sure agree to criticize free speech.
I wonder if we need a more fundamental level of housecleaning in Washington.
e.
spyder, you seem to suggest that there was no left-wing pressure brought to bear because of the disinvitation to Mr. Chemerinsky. It is true that criticism came from many directions, but the criticism from the left was much more shrill. It’s pretty hard to imagine this episode as anything other than a success for the left.
Hi Chanda,
I agree with Sean about your post. It’s not the beliefs that are at stake (at the moment) but the strategy used to promote them. I don’t think your counter-example about affirmative action is at all analogous–this disinvitation was a highly exceptional action undertaken to prove a point, while the removal of Affirmative Action was a long campaign to make an actual change to university policy (rather than just a statement about politics). It would be as if during the affirmative action debate the side that happened to be currently in power decided to never let anybody with the opposing viewpoint on campus in any official capcity, even if he wasn’t going to talk about it in that capacity. Would you be in favor of this? I sure hope not.
-Sam
It is indicative of the left that Ahmedinejad who leads a country where women can be flogged for not being covered enough is welcome to speak at Columbia whereas Larry Summers cannot. And you can find leftists justifying both positions in the same sentence.
‘Larry Summers is an extremely smart guy who said some extremely stupid things about women and science at a conference’
Wake me up in 10 centuries please when Scientific Fact is restored back to above Political Correctness.
It is a duty not to cooperate with one’s oppressor. Doesn’t matter if the oppressor uses scientific speculation or reasoned arguments to oppress. In that sense, everyone who thinks that Larry Summers is part of a system of oppression is duty-bound not to add one iota of credibility or anything else by listening to him. This is a higher value than freedom of speech (as in, no forum is barred to anyone). In this audience, I’d count Chanda among those who think so.
For others for whom Summers represents a mistaken but arguable point of view, freedom of speech (again, as in, no forum is barred to anyone) is the predominating value. In this audience, I’d count Sean among this group.
The effective difference between Ahmedinejad and Summers in this sense is that our listening/not listening to Ahmedinejad is irrelevant to his standing, which derives from his position in Iran; while Summers is a member of our society and his standing does depend on what we yield to him. Of course, if we take a “universal human rights” point of view, then we should not give an audience to Ahmedinejad either.
Perhaps the “Cold Civil War” between the Left and the Right in the US needs to end first before these sort of issues can be dealt with properly? 🙂
Arun, I strongly disagree with your statements. Your argument about oppressors assumes that there is a simple black-and-white distinction between oppressors and non-oppressors. No such black-and-white distinction exists. Everybody and everything, to some extent, constrains my freedom. And even the worst oppressor grants me some tiny degree of freedom. Given the lack of any clear line of demarcation, your argument collapses.
I find your distinction between Mr. Ahmedinejad and Mr. Summers entirely artificial. The people who oppose Mr. Ahmedinejad’s speaking do so for exactly the same reason that other people oppose Mr. Summers’ speaking: they disagree with his thinking, and they mistakenly think that giving somebody a forum is an implicit endorsement of that person’s beliefs.
So, the UC regents can’t invite Larry Summers, but the president of Columbia can invite Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
Does no one else find this to be surreal?
Well, at least in Iran there is less discrimination against female scientists than in the US, so the US can learn a lot from Ahmadinejad…
Chandra wrote:
Chandra,
You are probably completely oblivious of the degree to which your comments seem to be imbued with an insultingly racist tinge. That you believe it a “tragedy” to bar unqualified black students from the UC system seems to imply that you believe that Blacks have no other means of attending such universities, because, of course, they are naturally inferior.
Replace “Blacks” with “Irish” in your remarks, consider that even in the case of Irish under-representation few liberals would favor pro-Irish affirmative action (because the Irish, being white, are not presumed to be inferior), and understand why your remarks are insulting.
This is precisely the phenomenon to which President Bush refers, when he talks about the “soft bigotry of low expectations”.
Belizean, either you honestly believe that Chanda thinks blacks are naturally inferior — in which case you are breathtakingly clueless — or you are trying to twist the reality of the situation to score cheap rhetorical points. Neither reflects very well on you. If you want to disagree, do so on the merits, not by projecting garbage onto other people’s words.
Black children and white children in this country do not grow up with equivalent support and opportunities. Until they do, affirmative action, as clumsy and awkward as it may be, is the most successful strategy yet devised to help compensate for that inequality. Pretending that the most fair procedure is to treat people equally after they have been raised in dramatically unequal circumstances is either stupid or malicious, or both. Once those circumstances are equal, I’ll be the first to advocate race-blind admissions.
On the off chance that this statement is not sarcastic, I should like to point out that it is perfectly possible to be anti-American or anti-Bush without completely losing one’s mind and writing utter inanity.
Ahmadinejad’s Iran is in fact a state of sexual apartheid. Female Iranian scientists are not exempt from the usual treatment accorded an Iranian woman:
She must wear the traditional hijab. She is barred from attending soccer games, lest she be corrupted by the sight of bare male legs. She is segregated on buses, in classrooms, and at entrances to certain buildings. If she is suspected of adultery, she in great danger of being stoned to death. She is subject to violence and torture because of the political beliefs of her male relatives. She enjoys no legal recourse for physical abuse she suffers at the hands of her husband. She must endure cultural indignities such as: forced marriage, forced abortion, forced sterilization, infanticide, and forced marital sex (rape). Her rights to file for divorce are much inferior to her husband’s. Her right to the custody of her children is much inferior to her husband’s. If she refuses to wear the veil, she is subject to arrest, imprisonment, and torture. If she wears stylish western clothes, she is subject to arrest, imprisonment, and torture. If she gathers with other women to peacefully protest any of the above, she is subject to arrest, imprisonment, and torture.
“The government of President Ahmadinejad is trying to roll back even the modest freedoms won by Iranian civil society over the last decade.” — Sarah Leah Whitson, Regional Director, Human Rights Watch.
Sean,
Please read your statement. You are not advocating a program that limits the lowering of standards to disadvantaged students, or to impoverished students, or to students raised by illiterates. You are advocating a program to lower standards for black students. This implies that you believe that a black student — irrespective of how wealthy and privileged his upbringing — is necessarily disadvantaged, because she is black.
I am of course aware that you and Chandra are both well meaning. But a few moments of genuine introspection should reveal to you that your position is completely untenable without the tacit assumption of intrinsic black inferiority. With a proper exertion of empathic effort, you might even come to grasp how it could be that many Blacks find your sort of advocacy quite insulting.
I do believe that, on average, blacks in the U.S. face disadvantages that whites do not. It’s a phenomenon known as “racism,” which has been recognized by many people. And it is something that operates on top of the obvious social and economic inequalities that blacks face in our society.
Obviously, some blacks are wealthy, and the burdens of racism do not fall equally on every member of each group. Ideally, we would be able to look into the souls and personal histories of each college applicant, and use our perfect knowledge and judgment to craft the best possible entering classes for our universities. But we can’t, and affirmative action is the best response to a difficult situation that anyone has yet come up with. You should read John Skrentny’s The Ironies of Affirmative Action, unless you prefer not to let facts get in the way of your name-calling.
Ignoring the reality, and just squawking that support for affirmative action relies on implicit racism, is deeply dishonest, whether intentionally or not. If you want to be a non-hack, you should stop imputing beliefs to people that they don’t have. Argue in good faith against what they actually say, not your inner cartoon of what they must be thinking.
Belizean,
You need to reread it yourself. All Sean is saying is that affirmative action “levels” the playing field making up for socioeconomic inequities. Let us know when you are ready to support a living wage for all Americans, real job training and placement programs, government funded preschool beginning at age 2, universal healthcare including pre and postnatal support and counseling, adequate funding for public education at equal per pupil expenditures, and affordable government sponsored daycare. Then when a generation is ready for college we can consider eliminating affirmative action.
You do not need to begin with a presumption of black inferiority.
Regards,
Elliot
In practice (especially in the big cities) the situation is different than what you can read in the lawbooks. Now, it is of course true that in Iran women are treated completely differently than we are used to in the West. However, if you only look at the ratio of female/male scientists (and not if the female scientists have to wear a hijab 🙂 ) then Iran is doing much better than the US.