Veritas in Education -- Part III

Stephen Sachs, 2002 Harvard graduate and 2001 editorial co-chair of The Crimson, writes about Harvard professor Mary C. Waters’s description of tenured academics at Harvard as "held hostage to fear" and Harvard professor Theda Skocpol’s reference to "fear and manipulation."

Those of us who have already left campus are shocked to hear what Summers has done.

We must have missed the news of academic sanctions levied against those who supported the visiting poet Tom Paulin. We have not read The Crimson’s repeated exposés of junior faculty denied tenure for their political speech. . . .  Including the case of former Fletcher University Professor Cornel R. West ’74, we have not even seen public criticism by the President’s office of any member of the Faculty for political positions.

In fact, the only person we’ve seen threatened with losing his job is Larry Summers.

Daniel J. Meltzer, Story Professor of Law at Harvard Law School, writes that the Harvard faculty "may wish to consider not merely how it regards Summers but also how others will regard collective Faculty efforts to force him out."

Some would say that the Faculty was trying to preserve its prerogatives against an energetic, if sometimes abrasive, President who was trying to press for change in many domains where it was badly needed.

Some would say that the Faculty, rather than engaging in spirited debate about a controversial hypothesis that may (as he himself suggested) be overstated or mistaken, instead will not tolerate utterances by the President that surely fall within the bounds of academic inquiry -- hardly an attractive image for a university whose motto is “Veritas.”

Those characterizations would not, as I have tried to indicate, be a complete picture, but they would, I fear, contain an uncomfortable amount of truth.

Three Harvard students -- Kate Penner, Paloma Zapeda and Lauren Truesdall -- write that "none of [Summers’] shortcomings should warrant the outpouring of vitriol that has spewed from some faculty members who have sought to capitalize on a set of unfortunate remarks originally intended to generate discussion of a more productive nature."

The "crisis of leadership" one tenured faculty member decried is pure political capitalization. . . .

Prior to Summers’ tenure as president, there had only been two female deans. He appointed two in his first two years. A majority of University vice presidents he has appointed have been women.

He has pushed to reform of the undergraduate curriculum, including an elimination of the Core and replacing it with a curriculum with greater emphasis on student-faculty contact and study abroad initiatives.

He has played an important role in the hiring of some of Harvard’s newest and brightest faculty, including Tisch Professor of History Niall Ferguson, Professor of Systems Biology Eric Lander, Bass Professor of English Louis Menand, and Johnstone Family Professor of Psychology Steven Pinker.

And for those who argue that the president has made himself unapproachable and inaccessible . . . he has made himself and the University more accessible than has perhaps any Harvard president since the implementation of the G.I. Bill.

Summers has added office hours, started evening house visits full of discussion, sponsored a number of student events, given dozens of guest lectures, and even taught courses.

Perhaps more importantly, he has opened the possibility of a Harvard education to those who could otherwise not afford the opportunity, making tuition free for any undergraduate student whose parents earn less than $40,000 and increasing financial aid across the university.

The three say that they "are merely representative of the many other [Harvard students] who share our viewpoint and have signed on to and helped author this piece."

The staff of The Crimson writes that the feedback they received after Tuesday’s faculty meeting -- both the op-ed submissions and letters to the editor – "overwhelmingly voiced support for both Summers and the comments he made on women and science at a recent conference of the National Bureau of Economic Research."

Jonah Goldberg prints a letter he received from a reader at Harvard, who agrees with him "whole-heartedly about the Summers show trial."

As a female scientist, I feel that this situation has made it WORSE for people like me, who has never felt particularly discriminated against . . .

I am of the generation that will be applying for academic positions in the next, say, two-to-five years, and the "task forces" set up will mean that any woman hired can be considered of questionable quality: were you hired because you excel, or to fill up the diversity quotas? . . .

I also hate the notion, which MUST necessarily follow from this kerfuffle, that there are things one cannot discuss. Academic freedom: yeah right!

The Harvard FAS Faculty this week performed the valuable function of demonstrating what is rotten at the core of the American academy:  tenured professors will defend to the death their right to call victims of mass murder "little Eichmanns" -- but there are some things one cannot discuss.

Comments

[Ken Buran]

The Harvard FAS Faculty this week performed the valuable function of demonstrating what is rotten at the core of the American academy: tenured professors will defend to the death their right to call victims of mass murder "little Eichmanns" -- but there are some things one cannot discuss.

That is the heart of the matter. What a pathetic joke for Harvard' motto to be "veritas".Give me a break.A principle-truth,freedom of thought and inquiry,etc.-is not a principle at all when it is applied selectively-to some people and some issues and not to others.It then is merely a prop to gain some political advantage or desired result.A few years ago I read a comment by a student regarding campus speech codes who,to paraphrase him, said "We don't oppose free speech as long as it's the right speech". Unwittingly he summed up the crux of the problem.

The radical left is as much a champion of un-American and un-democratic ideas(suppression of the truth,false propaganda,"re-education" of dissidents)as their Communist heroes ever were.The Harvard faculty would appear to have fit in well as bureaucrats at some Soviet gulag.Someone who learned of this incident and surrounding hoopla,without mention of time or place,would conclude it must be in the Soviet Union or some similarly repressive regime.Nope,it's right here in the USA and that is the saddest and most sickening aspect of the whole affair.

[P.Littman]

It is enouraging that some are at last
talking about the Elephantthat has been trumpeting in the Boiler room for so many years.
In the name of the Constitution do something about it.As President Reagan said
to Comrade Gorbatchov "Mr.President-tear down that Wall".

[Oscar]

Given that tenured professors have terms "not unlike Supreme Court Justices", as one Harvard student wrote in the Crimson, I think tearing down this wall will not be easy or short term. Public institutions may have an easier time of it, except in states where the legislature agrees with the Academic Left; private institutions will only feel the heat when alums and others stop donating, or start putting strings on their donations.