That would be apparent controversy surrounding remarks by Harvard University President (and former Secretary of the Treasury) Lawrence Summers, to his university’s Faculty of Arts and Sciences, controversial in light of Summers’ recent attributions of “intrinsic differences” as to why there appear to be fewer successful women faculty members in the maths and sciences at the Kremlin on the Charles.
It should be obvious to anyone that (1) a Secretary of the Treasury under Bill Clinton and (2) a man who could be elected President of Harvard University, is without doubt… a liberal. And not just in the sense of “liberal arts”.
Addressing a conference of the National Bureau of Economic Statistics (or some similar dismal sounding group), Summers tried to attribute the relatively low numbers of women at top university science posts to… among other things… “innate differences”. Summers, notwithstanding the ‘off the record” nature of the discussion, should have sensed disaster. And not from conservatives eager to pounce… but from the liberal Stalinist Estabilishment. And sure enough…
We’ll forget, shall we, the actual possibility of “self-selection”: top women academics, for a variety of reasons (including, say, the small number of female role models in top science and math positions in American academia), might just prefer other fields, or of course, fewer women start in the sciences and maths (in my highest level high school math class, for example, of 18 present, one was female, with comparable ratios for classes in the sciences).
Or, of course, maybe Summers is actually on to something (although I think “social explanations” are easier for me to accept than some sort of “biological” explanation about boys being “smarter” or “more sciencey” or anything like that). Doesn’t matter: the liberal Stalinist Establishment has caught President Summers in a heresy, and will circle around him.
THIS is what we waste time on. Not that our nation is torturing people in our name. Not that it is running larger deficits per year than it ever has before. Not that it is decimating its own environment, or making decisions that may prove irreparable in many areas.
Nope: Larry Summers committed heresy. He said something politically incorrect. Now he must pay. Only Larry will keep his job… As to the rest of us…
tdog
Um.
I have spent less than no time on this thing, but nonetheless, oy, dear.