Today's New York Times reports on charges at Harvard that its president insults the faculty. One bit deserves quotation:
Caroline Hoxby, an economics professor, opened her remarks by saying that the discussion was not about "right versus left" or political correctness, but about management. Some commentators have put a political spin on the debate over remarks by Dr. Summers that women may lag in science and engineering because of "intrinsic aptitude."
"Every time, Mr. President, you show a lack of respect for a faculty member's intellectual expertise, you break ties in our web," Professor Hoxby said to Dr. Summers, according to a copy of her remarks. "Every time you humiliate or silence a faculty member, you break ties in our web."
So far as I can tell, the administration at the University of Minnesota is steering towards a university system in which the U of M would be clearly first rate and lots of other institutions would be clearly second rate. The impression that all the institutions in the state are in the same game would become obsolete. To do this, the administration will need to convince some faculty and some departments that they are first rate and that other faculty and departments are second rate. First rate faculty and departments get more money and a better place in the homecoming parade. After that, the U of M must go on to convince many other universities, one by one, that they are second rate and that the U of M is first rate. The goal of this enterprise is to be up there with Harvard, in the very small winner's circle.
To get to that exalted circle, the U of M will have to silence and humiliate lots of other institutions, and the instruments of the U of M, the administrators, the chairs of favored departments, the full professors, the admissions committees, will have to silence and humiliate many individual people who have taken an interest in the life of the mind and the creation of culture -- people who, in other contexts, would be their natural allies.
Harvard's experience with its current president suggests that this habit of silencing and humiliating is not easy to unlearn.
One might sometimes be condemned to splendid isolation, to towering over one's fellows. Life does that to people sometimes. But why would any sane person choose a course of action that magnifies differences and forbids connection? Why would any sane person take a great university down this road?
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It's interesting to observe that recent work in the field of developmental neurology clearly shows the male and female brain develop into distinctly different organs. The remarks made by the President at Harvard were not intended to humiliate females. The fact is there is disparity between the number of males and females in the sciences and he suggested something that is congruous with what recent work suggests.
The focus of a University shouldn't be "the life of mind" or "the creation of culture" but rather the pursuit of art and knowledge. We are fortunate to attend a University that doesn't discriminate on the basis of sex but rather it discriminates on other factors. It shouldn't be assumed that these metrics automatically preclude women from the sciences.
Sane people compete with each other. Being a world-class research institution doesn’t destroy connections but rather a greater number of connections are available to such institutions. The best talent is attracted to such institutions that magnify what sets them apart from other similar institutions. Your statements are not only incorrect but if carefully scrutinized FORBIDS diversity. Why would any sane person wish to minimize the differences among us and our institutions?
Your perspective is nearly the same perspective the Chinese have been moderating and moving away from. Civil competition has been at the heart of all human advances. Please put a little more thought into your posts.