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 A recent invitation from the University of California Regents has been rescinded after a group of UC faculty circulated a petition demanding that Summers be disinvited.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.
Not only is there almost no coverage in the corporate media of black violent crimes against white people, but in high profile cases they proffer the black criminals as ‘real victims’.
To illustrate the sickening bias, imagine if the facts were reversed – if a gang of six white kids led by someone with four previous convictions for violent-crime had attacked a lone black student, kicking and stomping him into unconsciousness. As far as the corporate media are concerned, they would be interviewing the black victim on every TV talk show across the land, discussing his fear, his pain, his suffering. They would be interviewing his crying relatives and friends. They would not be voicing any fear that the white attackers would be treated too harshly, or even that they would be treated at all.
No one knows who hung up those nooses, but clearly ‘white racists’ lost out the most from it.
d, there are many cases where people have not been held accountable for beating persons to death, see e.g. here:
Elliot,
But you didn’t answer my question! I’m pretty sure anyone who went to school in the US is fairly (or at least vaguely) familiar with the essence of the 1st Amendment. But since you are someone with a legal education (I believe?) then you should be able to enlighten us about the details that only someone with a legal training would know.
But maybe I a misunderstanding what you were trying to communicate. Are you saying that because of the way the first amendment has been interpreted, there are no hate speech laws anywhere in the US? What about laws that bar discrimination in the workplace? For some reason I was under the impression that if a woman’s male boss (or vice versa) says something overtly sexist, the victim has legal recourse in many places? Wouldn’t such an issue fall under the purview of hate speech/1st amendment rights?
Chanda
Sam, I am sorry if I said something that caused a misunderstanding, but I wasn’t suggesting that I have a right to live my life free of hearing such comments. I’m not going to sue AP or Larry Summers because I had to hear his ridiculous comments.
On the other hand, if my supervisor said something like that to me, I’m glad that Canadian law would stand behind me if I wanted to make it clear to him that such comments do not belong in my immediate environment. In other words, I have a right to a harassment-free workplace. (This is, of course, a very theoretical supervisor! When it comes to issues of discrimination, Lee has been a great source of wisdom and support for me.)
Chanda
Are you saying that because of the way the first amendment has been interpreted, there are no hate speech laws anywhere in the US?
Yes.
or some reason I was under the impression that if a woman’s male boss (or vice versa) says something overtly sexist, the victim has legal recourse in many places?
It’s not that simple. The issue is what’s called a hostile work environment. The quote is something like:
Generally, as I understand it, a single instance in not a sufficient cause of action. And, yes, the tension between the first amendment and harassment law is significant.
There are similar but not precisely analgous issues in hate crimes laws.
Chanda,
There are no “hate speech” laws in the U. S. If there were they would be struck down immediately as unconstitutional under the 1st amendment.
Anti-Harassment laws are constitutionally derived from 14th amendment “equal protection” clause, which interestingly is the clause that simultaneously supports/opposes affirmative action.
The anti-harrasment/hostile environment protections are designed to protect people from harrassment in their place of work or educational institution.
I think to try to distill this down. If people act in a way that makes you uncomfortable on an ongoing basis in your school/workplace or other place where you cannot freely choose to leave without consequence, the law will protect you against that behavior. If on the other hand someone “peacefully” makes any type of derogatory speech however offensive or horrifying and you have the choice to ignore it, their actions are protected.
It is a delicate balancing act to be sure but back to the topic of this thread, nobody is forcing anyone to listen to a Larry Summers speech.
If, to pose a hypothetical, when he was president of Harvard, he continually did/said things that made it uncomfortable to be a student there based on gender/race/age whatever, he could be held liable.
Hopefully this clarifies the legal aspects.
Regards,
Elliot
Sean,
Sorry the delay in my response (grant-writing deadline crunch).
You seem to have willfully missed the point of my thought experiment, so I will state it explicitly:
There is vastly more anti-Mormonism in the Republican party than there is anti-Black racism.
I further believe that most Republicans regard Blackness in a candidate a plus. Until Condoleeza Rice acted to quash it, there was a vigorous and growing “Draft Condi” movement within the party.
I didn’t miss your point, I was just making fun of it.
The “Draft Condi” activity shows just how out of touch the GOP is. She is probably the worst SOS I can remember. Of course that would fit with the WPE (worst president ever)
Can you point to one “diplomatic success” during her tenure?
It’s not hard to indentify the failures.
e.
Elliot,
Your observation (that Condi leaves much to be desired as a candidate) bolsters my point.
Sean,
I can’t blame you. What else can you do once you’ve run out of tenable counter arguments?
Belizean,
From a political perspective, Condi Rice is a white man.
e.
And Clinton is sometimes called the first Black president
Elliot,
That’s a bit like saying that from a social perspective, Barny Frank is a woman. So what?
Your statement is irrelevant to the point: anti-Black racism is negligible in the Republican party. This is in contradistinction to the Left, where Blacks, women, and members of other historically oppressed groups are herded like children into metaphorical reservations, where well-meaning liberals guard them even from potentially offensive speech by, for example, dis-inviting Larry.
Count Iblis,
Only by idiots.
Belizean,
Now who is insulting the intelligence of blacks. If the overwhelming majority (approx 90%) support Democrats are they simply stupid not to see what a land of opportunity the GOP will afford them.
Elliot
Tonight’s News: The 4 top GOP candidates for President all decided to skip a debate at a black university moderated by Tavis Smiley. That behavior speaks volumes about what the GOP “really” thinks about the black voter.
Elliot
Elliott wrote: “If on the other hand someone ‘peacefully’ makes any type of derogatory speech however offensive or horrifying and you have the choice to ignore it, their actions are protected.”
Sorry, Elliott, I think you make some good points, but you’re quite wrong on the law – derogatory or offensive speech is clearly sufficient to create an illegally hostile work environment.
And Aaron, it is also not correct that a single instance is insufficient. I’m sure you can imagine examples of single instances of derogatory or offensive “expression” (remember, this is not limited to speech, and includes forms such as cartoons, signs, photos, etc.) so odious as to permanently handicap an employee’s work performance or intimidate him/her, which would meet legal criteria for a hostile work environment.
it is also not correct that a single instance is insufficient.
I said “generally”. Single incident cases do exist as I understand it, but there is a requirement that said incident has to be extraordinarily “severe”. In the cases I’ve seen, such incidents often involve physical contact.
Quid pro quo harrassment is a different case, however, I believe.
Jud,
Perhaps I was unclear. When I said “you have the choice to ignore it” I meant that to explicitly exclude you workplace or educational institution where you do not have that choice. The first sentence of the paragraph refers to workplace/educational institution where you can be held accountable. I think we are in agreement on what is/is not protected speech. Workplace actions are different.
Elliot
Affirmative action is part of Political Correctness. It is a disease of ideology and it is a deadly serious business. It is Marxism translated from economic terms into cultural terms and in this case it has infested our academic institutions.
It is a totalitarian ideology. It peppers our universities and colleges with “victims” and has managed to create social constructs and turned them into degree conferring legitimacy. This is where truth is suppressed since the realities that are under consideration contradict the reality of history. Political Correctness is living the life of a lie. Thus this ideology is creating a totalitarian state.
Thus with admissions and other administrative areas, affirmative action is an exercise in the system of expropriation. It is theft. The methods used are deconstructionist in that they remove all meaning and insert desired meanings.
Affirmative action is part of an official state ideology enforced against the people. This is terrorism. The terrorism of Political Correctness. It seeks to destroy freedom and culture.
What Ahmedinejad said at Columbia through the commentary of Col P. Lang:
http://turcopolier.typepad.com/sic_semper_tyrannis/2007/09/what-ahmadinaja.html
It was quite a performance. If this were a presidential debate, I would judge him the winner based on rhetorical skill and coolness under fire.
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This reminds me of Richard Herrnstein affair — in 1971 he published an article about heritability of IQ in Atlantic Monthly. As a result he was called a racist, and could no longer lecture on his specialty — learning in pigeons, because of chanting mobs.