February 21, 2006

SUMMERS VS. THE HARVARD RADICALS: HOW TO END A WAR

"The quickest way of ending a war is to lose it."
--George Orwell

        Last year Horsefeathers went to a Harvard alumni function to hear Larry Summers speak. Hoping for a vigorous defense of freedom of inquiry and the scientific method, instead we got pabulum, a weak kneed mea culpa, and a list of new and costly undertakings to raise the percentage of women on the science faculty. When he opened the floor for questions, two women scientists, graduates of Harvard, spoke out bravely against the lynch mob seeking to hang him from the P.C. rafters. One of them chastised Summers for not vigorously defending science and warned that if Summers instituted all his measures for achieving 'gender equity' he would create a dept. she wouldn't want to be a part of, while the other vigorously defended the training she received in a Harvard Math. dept. made up of primarily white males. The disappointment by many Summers supporters was palpable. After all, this was the man who fought the leftist anti-semites on campus as they sought to divest from and delegitimize Israel.
        Today's New York Sun reminds us of what is at stake in the Harvard struggle and pays tribute to the pre-emasculated Summers for his efforts against the herd of independent minds seeking his scalp. The Sun editorialist writes: "...Mr. Summers has shown flashes of brilliance since taking over in July 2001 as president of America's oldest, richest, and most famous university. We were among those who cheered his willingness to confront political anti-Semitism on campus; his speech in Memorial Church, where he said the signers of a petition to get the university to divest from Israel were anti-Semitic in their effect if not their intent, is one of the most important ever given by a Harvard president. When Mr. Summers came under attack for remarks on gender differences, we observed - in an editorial called "The Soul of Harvard" - that Mr. Summers's travail could not be separated from his defense of Israel.
        Certainly his critics in the contretemps over his remarks on gender included many who participated in a movement that Mr. Summers proclaimed anti-Semitic in effect. And we have admired enormously a number of other gestures by Mr. Summers, including his attendance as recently as February 10 at an extraordinary Sabbath dinner that drew hundreds of students and faculty members and at which he drew a standing ovation. He showed his understanding of the role of Harvard in wartime, beginning with his appearance at a commissioning ceremony for the Reserve Officers Training Corps program that was kicked off Harvard's campus in the era of protest against the war in Vietnam..." See the rest here.
        The NYSUN reminds us that it wasn't only the radical feminists who were offended by Summers; it was the entire left utopian agenda that he challenged and whose supporters he outraged. Tragically, Summers has become a victim of his own assumption that he was dealing with reasonable people who had simply misunderstood him. He has turned into the Neville Chamberlain of academia, a bright, well meaning man, appealing to the good will of his adversaries and letting hope prevail over reality, who never realized that he was actually in a barroom brawl with two bit intellectual bullies.