News, News, News
At Duke, President Dick Brodhead has called for the nefarious and incompetent D.A. Mike Nifong to step aside....
The Times reports on a number of university presidents who have come under fire in recent years. "The most celebrated case involved Lawrence H. Summers.... Circumstances vary, but the overthrow of Dr. Summers may have been contagious."
In the classic style of British journalism, The Independent's David Usborne has rewritten articles from the Times and the Crimson (at least he gives them credit) to produce "Woman May Lead Harvard After Sexism Controversy."
Here we see where the Times' mistake of focusing on the wrong women matters:
Candidates on a shortlist now before Harvard's presidential search committee are believed to include at least three women presidents at other Ivy League universities: Shirley Tilghman of Princeton, Ruth Simmons of Brown and Amy Gutmann of the University of Pennsylvania. Also being mentioned is Alison Richard, presently vice-chancellor of the University of Cambridge.
(That Times story was reprinted in the South China Morning Post and the International Herald Tribune, incidentally.)
Meanwhile, a letter writer to the American Spectator [Blogger: apparently the American Spectator still exists] notes, "
There are still some disputation zones where political correctness dictates that one ought to keep one's mouth shut about known differences. It is unfortunate for Harvard that Lawrence Summers didn't have handlers to edit his statements."
About which one must say two things: Lawrence Summers, of course, did have handlers to edit his statements. (Imagine what might have happened if he hadn't.) And two...disputation zones?
And speaking of Larry Summers, in April 2005 the president got some much-needed good ink for pledging to divest from companies supporting the genocide in Darfur. Whoops! Following up on the Crimson, InsideHigherEd.com reports that never quite happened. (I'm shocked, of course.)
After receiving much praise for taking an ethical stand to sell off stocks in companies that may support genocide in Darfur, Harvard University finds itself accused of continuing to profit from investments in that region of Sudan.
It's almost enough to make you think that Summers was just trying to generate some positive press without bothering to follow through.....
And finally, Elizabeth Green on USNews.com seconds the point raised here earlier: What if no one really wanted to be president of Harvard? Her short piece is called, "Newspapers Agree: Harvard Might Want a Woman. But Does a Woman Want Harvard?"
