Shots In The Dark

In an otherwise thoughtful column, New Republic editor Jonathan Chait takes an egregiously wrong shot at the critics of Larry Summers.

Chait begins thusly: "There are certainly subjects that liberals refuse to discuss without resorting to hysteria and name-calling. (Ask Harvard President Lawrence Summers, who has spent much of the year groveling abjectly for having delicately suggested the possibility that maybe inherent differences play a role in the paucity of female scientists.)"

Now, just hold on a second there, fella. Let's consider that throwaway parenthetical a little more carefully.

What Chait is really saying here is that the idea that "inherent differences play a role in the paucity of female scientists" isn't such a big deal, certainly not one that anyone should have to "grovel" about.

This is the kind of statement that only a white man could say and believe to be true.

Larry Summers posited a genetic deficiency to women. ("Prove me wrong," he added.) And I think if you're a woman, you'd have every right, and maybe every responsibility, to take that seriously indeed.

Imagine if Summers had said that "inherent differences" played a role in the paucity of African-American scientists. The outrage would be fast and furious, and few would deny its legitimacy.

So why is this argument seen as a kind of casual, harmless intellectual meandering when it's applied to women?

Kurt Andersen has a lovely review of Garry Trudeau's new Doonesbury book, "The Long Road Home: One Step at a Time," in today's Times.

The book is something of a twist for Trudeau; it's a collection of his strips about B.D., the football player-turned-soldier who lost his leg in Iraq. I read a number of the strips when they were published in newspapers, and remember thinking how odd it was that one of the few places in the American media dealing so honestly and poignantly about the wounds of war was...a comic strip.

However much later it is now—a year?—I still feel that way. There is so much important reporting, so much urgent storytelling, to be done about this war, and, with the exception of all-too-brief segments on the national news, our major networks do none of it.

When I was a kid, my mother, who is slightly to the left of George McGovern, hung a poster in our kitchen that said, "What if they had a war and nobody came?" I didn't really understand what the Vietnam-era slogan meant till later, but now I think the slogan should be updated: "What if they had a war and nobody cared?" Or: "What if they had a war and everyone watched reality TV?" Because the visual media seems to have decided that the war doesn't exist if they don't show it.

A second thought about Andersen's review. He concludes by writing that "Garry Trudeau, who by all rights should be phoning it in by now, still takes his responsibilities to the strip and his audience seriously, and in service to them still takes large and interesting risks."

I couldn't agree more. I think that one key to leading a meaningful life is to cherish the presence of genius in the moment, not simply to value it after its passage. That's why I watched Michael Jordan play as much as I could, even though I'm not a particularly big basketball fan, and why I was heartbroken when John Belushi died, and why I prayed that Jerry Garcia would finally quit using heroin (how well he played during those years when he was free of it!).

Garry Trudeau has been writing Doonesbury for, what, 35 years now? Remarkable. We should never take this man for granted.

I've finally joined the ranks of the landed and purchased an apartment in Manhattan, which means that posts may be erratic over the next few days. (It's also a sign that anyone thinking of going into real estate speculation shouldn't, as my entry into any market is generally a good sign of its imminent collapse.)

We'll see how our conglomerates—Verizon, Time-Warner, Con-Ed—and newer challengers (Earthlink, Vonage) perform in the next few days. Hopefully this transition will be as seamless as possible.

Meantime, thanks so much to all who came out for the Harvard Rules discussion in Washington yesterday, and to the organizers of it. I know I enjoyed it, and I hope you did too. And fantastic questions....

Here's an anti-Bush plank for Democrats to run on in 2006 and 2008: corruption. As in, the Bush administration is full of it.

There's more evidence of that today, as the Times reports that political appointees at the Justice Department "overrode the objections of career lawyers running the government's tobacco racketeering trial and ordered them to reduce the penalties sought at the close of the nine-month trial by $120 billion."

The man who made this bizarre decision, Associate Attorney General Robert McCallum, happpens to be a Skull and Bones—mate of Bush's who—it's so predictable—was previously a partner at an Atlanta law firm that represented the tobacco industry.

But let's return to that $120 billion figure. Career Justice Department lawyers had spent years building their case against Big Tobacco, and at the very last minute, the penalties they were seeking were reduced from $130 billion to ten billion by one of the president's cronies.

Imagine what that money could go to. A hell of a lot of medical care. Funding for public education. Or, if you prefer, a year of war in Iraq.

McCallum is the second Bush official in recent days who's been shown to have greater loyalty to his prior employer than to his present one. Phillip Clooney, former chief of staff of the White House Council on Environmental Quality—the man who used to work for the American Petroleum Institute—doctored already approved White House documents to soften warnings about global warming.

This trickle of corruption will become a torrent as Bush's second term winds down. That's the way second terms work—especially when you have a president who polices the morals of everyone except the people who happen to work for him.

The president of Harvard appears to have become a touchstone for every social debate about prejudice of any sort.

Writing originally in the Washington Post, Abigail Trafford cites Summers in a column defending—yes—older drivers.

I'll quote a little bit, because it contains one of the most glaring examples of fallacious argument I've seen in quite some time.

"'Oh, my God, they're sooooo slow." These words, quoted in a newspaper article, come from a 20-year-old woman in Florida. The subject of her condescending mirth: older drivers. Florida is full of them - white hairs in big cars, poking along... chuckle, chuckle.

"But what if the "they" in such a quote were black postal workers? Sooooo slow!"

"Or girls in algebra class? Sooooo slow!"

Instead of chuckles there would be outrage and charges of racism and sexism."

Okay, let's just dissect this. In the first instance, a 20-year-old attributes a quality to a demographic group—bad driving and old people. The ability, driving, is directly linked to the physical condition of the aged, at least in this young person's mind.

But in the latter two examples, the argument is applied to another group—African-Americans—based on their skin color, and to girls based on their gender. Totally different.

"Lawrence Summers, the president of Harvard University, nearly lost his job after he crossed the "ism" line with his remarks about the scientific ability of women," Trafford writes. So how come we don't get so upset about age-ism?

Well, lots of reasons. First, while there is certainly age-ism (what a terrible word) in American society, the elderly are also an enormously powerful political group, and are hardly discriminated against.

Second, because many older people (like many younger people) are terrible drivers, albeit for different reasons. It's not their fault that their coordination has deteriorated. But I've seen lots and lots of older drivers who clearly shouldn't be on the road, and just can't afford (or don't want) to give up their mobility.

I write this as someone whose father recently lost the ability to drive, and I know how difficult that is....

Washington Post columnist Richard Cohen muses on the recently reported study arguing that Jews have a genetic basis for superior intelligence. No one got particularly upset about this study, Cohen argues. So why did Larry Summers take so much flack for suggesting that there may be innate differences in aptitude between men and women?

Key graf: "I cannot be certain that Lawrence Summers, the president of Harvard, has read the article. But if he did, I bet he wondered why it is possible to suggest that certain Jews are smarter than other people but not remotely possible to suggest that women might not be as brilliant in science and engineering as men. When Summers did precisely that back in January -- when he wondered out loud about such matters as "intrinsic aptitude" -- he got his head handed to him. He was not, mind you, stating this as a fact -- just throwing it out along with other factors that might account for why men outnumber women on the science, engineering and math faculties of first-rate universities. What he did not do -- and this was his mistake -- was limit the possibilities to the only politically correct one: sexual discrimination of one sort or another."

I can be certain that Larry Summers read the article. You bet your ass he did. And I'll admit, when I read of this study, I imagined Summers reading it and feeling some sense of aggrievement.

There are differences, though. Important ones.

First, the Jewish-intelligence study attributed positive characteristics to one particular group, but unlike Summers, it didn't single out any specific group as coming up short.

Second, it's possible that when it comes to genetics, people are more likely to believe such assertions about specific ethnic groups, rather than entire genders. In other words, we may believe that Jews have great intelligence as compared to some other groups, but find it hard to accept that intelligence is divisible by gender.

A corollary: this is potentially quite troubling. Cohen must surely understand that one reason people didn't make such a fuss over this survey is that it reinforces prevailing stereotypes: Jews are smart and good at business. That happens to be a positive stereotype. Perhaps if that conclusion had been phrased differently, the reaction might have been more violent.

Third—and how many friggin' times do I have to repeat this?—the greatest outrage over Summers' remarks was not his assertion of differences between men and women, but his strong suggestion that this, rather than discrimination, was the greater explanation for the paucity of women in the sciences.

What's clear is that we're just beginning to understand the relationships between genetics and intelligence...but the amount we don't understand is vastly greater than that which we do. And until that ratio changes, people have to be very careful about drawing conclusions based on pop-science and the occasional isolated study, no matter how provocative they may be. It's kind of like the blind men and the elephant. Give some people just a little knowledge, and they can draw some bizarre conclusions.

Writing in Slate, Hua Hsu takes the piss out of Coldplay. Why is Chris Martin so sad? he asks. After all, Coldplay's lead singer is married to Gwyneth Paltrow (that one's too easy) and has a new baby. Maybe his songs don't really mean anything at all. It's not enough that Martin takes political stands for fair trade and other issues. His songs ought to be more political, to match the band's big sound.

Hsu's argument is smarter than Jon Pareles' silly, self-conscious takedown of Coldplay in the Times a couple weeks back, but I still think it's off-base.

I've listened to X & Y about twenty times in the week since it came out, and it's steadily grown on me. To judge it as an explicitly political record is a mistake (though, to be fair, one Martin might have encouraged, as he's frequently said that he wants Coldplay to be "bigger than U2").

X & Y is an album about love. It's the work of a man who's recently married and become a new father. You can hear it in every song: Martin can't believe his good luck—and he's terrified that it's going to change. He wants to make everything right—to keep it right. Images of repair abound, as when, in the gorgeous "Fix You," he sings, "Lights will guide you home/And ignite your bones/And I will try/To fix you."

Not the most graceful writing, but you get the point—Martin's a husband and a father now. He wants to protect. And haven't we all been in that position, where we can't believe our good fortune, and we know—we know, in our bones—that life doesn't stay so blissful for long, that our happiness is transient and will invariably be threatened by tragedy and illness and loss. In a strange way, the better off things are, the more we stand to lose, and the more we'll hurt when it happens.

So Martin wants to stop time, to enjoy a moment he feels is already slipping away. In the title cut, he sings, "I know something is broken/And I'm trying to fix it/Trying to repair it/Any way I can." And then, the lovely chorus: "You and me/are floating on a tidal wave/You and me/Are drifting into outer space/And singing...."

Is this life? Or death?

That may be a tough view of the world, but such existential anxiety has been Martin's philosophy consistently, ever since Coldplay's first album, Parachutes. On X & Y it is wed to an expansive sound that conflates the intensely personal with an album of arena-appropriate rock. To me, there's something courageous about that; no rock star makes himself more vulnerable than Chris Martin.

We have plenty of bands singing about why George Bush is a crummy president, and that's fine. Let Coldplay sing about love. Isn't that political? Isn't that enough?

Recent studies by the Department of Health and Human Services found that teenagers who took a pledge of virginity actually had similar rates of sexually transmitted diseases as did teenagers who declined to take the pledge. (Apparently, they also have a lot of anal sex, in the curious belief that backdoor-love "doesn't count.")

Now a conservative thinktank, the Heritage Foundation, has come out with two studies contradicting that finding—studies that seem more politically motivated than scientifically sound.

According to the Times, "Independent experts called the new findings provocative, but criticized the Heritage team's analysis as flawed and lacking the statistical evidence to back its conclusions. The new findings have not been submitted to a journal for publication, an author said. The independent experts who reviewed the study said the findings were unlikely to be published in their present form."

Conservatives remind me of the Catholic Church: They're both so anti-sex, they contort science and the truth to support their dogma. Both try to control what they fear—or what they see as a threat to their own hierarchical authority. And both wind up corrupting themselves internally as a result. Catholics have the child abuse problem; conservatives have the awkward truth that, as one high-level Republican friend of mine recently said to me, "they're all gay." He wasn't really joking.

No one wants to see teenagers screwing like bunnies. (Well, teenagers might, but otherwise....) But can't we just accept that sex is a normal, healthy part of life—even teenage life—and maybe it's better to teach kids about sex than just telling them that they shouldn't have any?

Here are various stories wrapping up the Shleifer case and the photoshop incident:

AP/New York Times
"U.S. District Judge Douglas P. Woodcock found that Shleifer and Hay conspired to defraud the government by making personal investments in Russia while working on a federal contract to assist in Russia's transition to capitalism."

The Chronicle of Higher Education
"Lawyers for the U.S. Department of Justice, Harvard University, and two other defendants reached a tentative agreement on Monday to settle a civil lawsuit in which the university, a professor, and a staff member were accused of conspiring to defraud the federal government through a program intended to help Russia make the transition to a market economy."

The Washington Post
"A Harvard brochure sent to thousands of prospective students included a doctored photo of the student newspaper's front page that removed a headline about the university president facing a confidence vote."

I wouldn't be surprised if the Harvard top brass tried to keep secret the details of the Shleifer settlement. But the symbolism of Shleifer's remaining presence at Harvard is urgent and awkward. Here's a man who likely broke the law—and more importantly, cynically exploited the opportunity to promote democracy abroad for personal financial gain.

Regardless of whether Shleifer has admitted to breaking the law, is there really a place on the Harvard faculty for such a figure?

What does Larry Summers think?

If, say, Shleifer were an outspoken, liberal, African-American professor—and not one of Summers' closest friends—would there be any doubt? No. He'd be gone.

I've been thinking about the concurrence of two events—the photoshopping of an embarrassing headline out of an admissions office brochure, and the postponement of the lawsuit settlement until after Commencement—and why they bother me so much.

After all, to some of you, such media manipulation might simply be seen as standard operating procedure for any large institution, especially one that is the "best brand in higher education."

At the risk of sounding either naive or self-congratulatory, I'd say that this behavior bothers me because I am idealistic about Harvard.

I believe that officials of the world's greatest university should hold themselves to a higher standard of behavior than the standard operating procedure in Washington, D.C. Unfortunately, these recent examples of media manipulation and public dishonesty have become the norm at Harvard over the past four years.

I believe that the university has an obligation to deal with the press in straightforward, candid, and intelligent ways, lest it degrade the values that a university is supposed to stand for, values that are increasingly hard to find made manifest in American society, and consequently increasingly important.

I believe that photoshopping a newspaper headline to eliminate potential embarrassment has a symbolic connotation of Orwellian behavior that we might expect from big business or the federal government—and that if we are not shocked by such behavior from Harvard, then we have truly lost something profound.

I believe that veritas, though it may be difficult in the short run, would serve Harvard well in the long term. I do not believe that truth has to be sacrificed in the conduct of a large and wealthy institution, and that if any place should stand by that credo, it is Harvard.

I believe that the university has an obligation to treat its alumni like intelligent human beings, integral parts of a worldwide community, rather than pawns to be manipulated and then solicited for money.

I believe that manipulating the media and public opinion may ease the pain of a short-term embarrassment, but over time, contributes to public cynicism regarding Harvard's behavior and the erosion of public support for higher education.

I believe that none of this will matter at Larry Summers' Harvard.

Yesterday Harvard and economist Andre Shleifer settled the government lawsuit against them regarding Shleifer's financial escapades in Russia.

"Continuing its newfound tradition of burying bad news over Summers vacation—whoops, summer vacation—Harvard is reportedly about to settle the federal lawsuit against the university."
—Shots in the Dark, 8:40 AM, June 14, 2024

"Yesterday’s hearing, originally scheduled for March, was postponed four times, most recently on the first of this month. That delay, according to a Harvard official who has been briefed on the case, was a public-relations move intended to push the settlement announcement until after Commencement, when the news would receive less attention."
—Reporter Zachary M. Seward in a Harvard Crimson web update published later that day

It occurs to me that I've been unfair to Larry Summers in one way; I neglected to give him credit for his efforts to promote financial aid for Harvard students, both undergraduate and graduate.

So...allow me.

Financial Aid: A
Raising the subject of class disparities and access to higher education may well be Larry Summers' finest achievement to date. It's an important subject, he's well-positioned to talk about it, and he's done more than talk: Summers' decision to make Harvard free for families making less than $40,000 was smart and progressive. It also put pressure on other universities, and some, such as Yale, have now followed Summers' lead. Summers has also pushed to expand financial aid for graduate students, a far less sexy topic, but one that's very important; as an ex-grad student myself, I can vouch for that.
On the subject of access to higher education, then, Larry Summers has been an effective and important spokesperson, and he's made good use of the Harvard bully pulpit.

...that on Thursday night I'll be giving a talk at the Chevy Chase Club in Chevy Chase, MD. I think I'm going to talk about competing visions of college life as manifested in Harvard Rules and Tom Wolfe's "I Am Charlotte Simmons."

And I'll probably talk about LHS a little, too.

It's not a public event, so if you're interested in coming, drop me an e-mail.....

A number of e-mailers have mentioned to me that I missed another pick-up of the deleted headline story: this, from CNN.com.

1) The verdict in the Jackson trial seems to me the right one: Who could honestly say that there was no doubt about the accusers?

2) Jackson is a creep, nonetheless.

3) Can we all let it go now? I don't mean to be a scold, but there is a war going on.....and the news isn't good.

4) A final thought: I followed the O.J. Simpson trial closely, because it seemed to me that that case raised important issues of race and justice and a vast gulf between the way blacks and whites saw their intersection. Plus, there was a terrible tragedy involved. But the Michael Jackson trial wasn't anything important. Whatever the verdict, who could possibly care about either the accused or the accusers? The theme of this trial was decadence—Jackson, for his life style, his accusers, for willingly contributing to it in order to be close to celebrity—and about that, who can muster a heartfelt thought?

And no, I'm not talking about the weather; I'm referring to Larry Summers' ongoing ability to attract media interest, particularly when the news is bad.

Both the Boston Herald and the Tuscaloosa News of Alabama pick up on the Crimson's piece about Harvard's doctored brochure for potential students, in which a headline embarrassing to Larry Summers was photoshopped out of existence.

(As I've noted before, some editor in Tuscaloosa has a jones for Summers; it's quite weird.)

I noted in my previous entry (see below) on this incident that dean of admissions Bill Fitzsimmons, someone I have quite a lot of respect for, had given an unfortunately weasely answer when asked about the brochure, which is put out by his office.

And I suggested a more, um, honest answer.

So here's another free lesson in media management: When you give an answer that covers your ass in the short term but makes it look like you've got something to hide, you actually create more media interest in what should be a non-event, as this incident was.

Which is another way of saying that when it comes to the press, honesty is the best policy.

The American Press Institute comes to Summers' defense with a new study of men and women in the newsroom. (Fascinating, I'm sure.)

Here's the opening paragraph: "Despite the recent backlash over remarks by Harvard President Lawrence Summers about women in science, more than 30 years of research on gender differences points to one conclusion: Men and women are different. They think differently and they have different aptitudes."

Couple of things....

First, I question that use of the word "backlash," which I've seen used several times in this exact context—the backlash against Summers. The word implies that somehow the reaction to Summers' women-in-science remarks was illegitimate, perhaps even contrived.

Second, though the statements the author makes about men and women thinking differently are so vague it's hard to say whether they're true or false, it's important to remember that that wasn't really the reason for the Summers controversy. The issue was whether differences in the way that men and women think explained the paucity of women in the sciences and mathematics—or whether discrimination was a far more plausible factor.

Well, not yet. Not technically, anyway.

Continuing its newfound tradition of burying bad news over Summers vacation—whoops, summer vacation—Harvard is reportedly about to settle the federal lawsuit against the university.

You may recall that the government brought the suit over the behavior of economist Andre Shleifer, whose Harvard Institute for International Development received massive sums from the US to consult on the Russian economy in the 1990s. Turns out that Shleifer was allegedly investing in the very same things he was consulting on. Oh, well. Shleifer teaches economics, not ethics. (And a good thing, too.)

As Marcella Bomardieri and Alex Beam report in the Globe, "a federal judge had already found that Harvard economics professor Andrei Shleifer and former employee Jonathan Hay conspired to defraud the government by making personal investments in Russia while working on a federal contract to help the country's transition to capitalism. The judge also ruled last year that Harvard breached its contract with the US Agency for International Development. Damages in the case have not been determined."

No one's talking about the terms of the settlement yet, but inevitably it will raise this awkward question: If Harvard admits wrongdoing, and/or agrees to pay a fine, does Andre Shleifer get to keep his job? He won't exactly be a convicted criminal, but close enough to think that his continued presence on the Harvard faculty would be a stain on the university.

The matter would seem a no-brainer...except for this relevant detail: Shleifer is one of Larry Summers' best friends.....

Will Summers continue to support his friend? Or will he put Harvard's best interest ahead of his own sense of loyalty?

Hey, no one ever said being a university president was easy.

Last week I wrote that President Bush should fire Phillip Clooney, the former oil industry lobbyist who, as chief of staff for the White House Council on Environmental Quality, had doctored reports to minimize the threat of global warming.

On Saturday—huh, I wonder why they announced it on Saturday?—the White House announced that Clooney resigned.

Here's a wonderful example of Washington double-speak for you:

Clooney's "departure was 'completely unrelated' to the disclosure,' White House spokeswoman Dana Perino said.

"'Mr. Cooney has long been considering his options following four years of service to the administration,' she said. 'He'd accumulated many weeks of leave and decided to resign and take the summer off to spend time with his family.'"

(Harvard and Washington are now speaking the same language. Discuss.)

Ignore the pathetic disingenuousness of this statement. We can safely assume that Bush told Clooney that he'd become a liability and it was time for him to go.

But here's the way this announcement should have been made—with a statement from Bush saying, "As you all know, I have my doubts about global warming. Nonetheless, any member of my administration must reflect my stands on issues and not those of the special interest group for whom he used to work. Mr. Clooney should have known better. Now he does."

Wouldn't that be cool?

...to coin a term:

"Instead of trying to meet new men, I opened my address book and called up the guys I knew from high school, camp, and Jewish youth group. We’d make dates and reminisce, and sometimes the evenings would end in making out, or more. Though my recycling, or blue-binning, didn’t lead to anything serious, it gave me the self-esteem I needed to start fresh."

—Amy Sohn, The Devil You Know, New York magazine, current issue

Feel Sohn slog away as she tries to invent a term which will add to her reputation as a mistress of the zeitgeist....

I met Amy Sohn once, and in person she's quite sexy. But her "Mating" column in New York arrives at your doorstep every week with all the excitement of a wet newspaper. I'm sure it's not easy to write a good sex column once every seven days—not, mind you, that I've ever tried—but in all of New York City, can't Adam Moss find someone who makes sex, well, sexy?

Third in a series: alternate takes on questions for The Ethicist, in the Sunday Times magazine....because right now, the column is dull, dull, dull.

First question:

My company produces journal-writing software that includes encryption and password protection. The parents of a customer recently wrote that their daughter had died tragically. They asked me to unencrypt her journal so they ''may access her last words.'' I sympathize, but feel bound to protect a customer's privacy. Do you agree that I should send a gentle note declining to decode the journal? Ruth Folit, Sarasota, Fla.

The Ethicist's answer: Yup. "You have an obligation to protect the privacy of your customer." If the daughter had wanted her parents to read her journal, she could have told her parents the password or left instructions in a will.

The Re-Ethicist's response: Here's a first—I'm inclined to agree with Randy Cohen on this one. I wish I knew, though, whether the daughter in question was a minor, and how she died. If she was 25 and she died after a long battle with cancer—and still didn't leave instructions on how her parents could read her journal—then she clearly didn't want them to read it. But if she was 16 and she died of a drug overdose, she probably wasn't thinking about dying, and wouldn't have left a will—so that part of Cohen's answer is silly. Moreover, if she died under those circumstances, her journal could give a hint as to who was selling her the drugs.

(If any lawyers out there would care to comment on the legal status of the deceased's right to privacy if she was a minor, I'd be interested to hear your thoughts. Under what circumstances does a 15-year-old have a legal right to privacy? If a 15-year-old can't get a credit card, is she able to enter into an implied contract with a software company?)

That's just one hypothetical; you could imagine others under which the parents might have a compelling reason to be able to read their deceased daughter's writing.

But you could also imagine scenarios under which reading her journal might only cause them pain. (Ever read someone's journal writings about you? Not a good idea.)

So without further information, we'll say Cohen is correct!

2nd question:

One of our neighbors, a 12-year-old boy, has a teacher who penalizes students if they turn in handwritten assignments. Our neighbors cannot afford a computer, but students are permitted to use the computer lab after school. However, when there is no teacher to supervise, the lab is not available. Is this teacher's policy ethical? Julie Beman Dixon, Hartford

The Ethicist:" This teacher would be wrong to impose a demand that unduly burdens students with little money. By providing a computer lab, however, the school has reasonably accommodated kids who lack computers of their own. (Assuming, that is, that a teacher is generally on duty and the computer lab is widely available.)"

Moreover, Cohen says, it's good to require kids to learn how to type.

The Re-Ethicist: Wrong!

The teacher is not within his rights to compel a sixth-grader to type papers. In fact, he's abusing the student's right to have an actual childhood. For one thing, sixth graders should learn how to write longhand, and that's rarely a finished process by age 12. More important, the point of the requirement seems primarily about making the teacher's life easier, rather than helping the student learn. At this point in his/her development, the student would be better served by putting more time into the composition of the paper than its logistics.

Finally, it's wrong to make a kid stay after school because he doesn't have a computer. This kid's family obviously doesn't have a lot of money. Maybe the kid has, say, a job after school, and doesn't have the time to go to the school's computer lab to type up his paper all so that a sixth-grade teacher doesn't have to strain his eyes.

The Re-Ethicist says: We have enough pre-professionalism in our society without making sixth-graders type papers. This teacher should be severely reprimanded.

When it runs articles like this:

Behind the masks
"Who is Batman? Savior or tortured soul? After all these years, we still don't know."

—The Boston Globe, June 13, 2024

To truly appreciate just how bad this story is, imagine it in a more serious paper—the Times or the Journal—and the gales of laughter it would provoke.