professors' responses
The battle between Harvard president Larry Summers and the university's Faculy of Arts and Sciencs reahed a climax on March 15th when 218 members of the faculty voted that they lacked confidence in his leadership. This is the first facult revolt to to take place in a major research university in the U.S. After a faculty meeting to resolve the Summer's attack, many professors stood at different ends of the table. The faculty discussed whether makin ggreter efforst to hire more women would confluck with the meritocratic standard of hiring the best individual from a list of candidates. One dean stated, "If Harvard hopes to hire the nation's mos tpromising demographer, searching for the best female demographer may not yield the best or even the third-best scholar." Steven Pinker, a professor of psycology, had the most riverating observation when he noted, "A university is supposed to be a place where ideas are evaluated by reasoned debate informed by the relevant liteerature, not by a show of hands of the faculty who happpens to show up to a meeting on a Tuesday afternoon". Vigorous criticism of Summers was intirely appropiate, but his critics were not arguing with him. Thy were trying to silence him, and they've clearly succeeded in doing so.
On a different note, the university's ability to raise magabucks from its alumni may indeed suffer, if the feminists conduct a successful campaign to persuade donors to boycott teh school unti loSummers is replaced.
Posted by wall0594 at May 2, 2005 10:00 AM