« Reader letter | Churchill's questionable claims »
September 17, 2005

Summers' Storm

By

Finally, a university community has openly concluded freedom of speech in publicly discussing  controversial ideas is not proper if students, some faculty and others in the general public are upset by the findings.  Tolerance, open mindedness and diversity evidently have their limits in a university community. Of course, questioning or even confronting a faculty member about disagreeable opinions is  necessary for the proper functioning of the institution and greater society. But that is so old fashioned these days.
 
So it will be interesting to see how Lawrence Summers,  president of Harvard University and former adviser to President Clinton, fares during an ongoing series of meetings with the school's faculty, the first since  his remarks about gender differences in scientists. 
 
Meanwhile Ward Churchill of the University of Colorado, Rashid Khalidi and Joseph Massad of Columbia University and others on the left continue to garner sympathy as victims of a witch hunt, despite their bigoted and unscholarly writings and behavior. 
 
The latter, and others of similar opinion, have political correctness on their side——Summers doesn't. 
 
And that makes all the difference.
 
Ethel C. Fenig  2 16 05