Larry Summers: Banned in California
Posted on September 15th, 2007 in Uncategorized | 11 Comments »
The University of California-Davis has rescinded a speaking invitation to Larry Summers.
After a group of UC Davis women faculty began circulating a petition, UC regents rescinded an invitation to Larry Summers, the controversial former president of Harvard University, to speak at a board dinner Wednesday night in Sacramento. The dinner comes during the regents’ meeting at UCD next week.
…âThe regents represent the leadership and public face of the University of California,â the petition states. âInviting a keynote speaker who has come to symbolize gender and racial prejudice in academia conveys the wrong message to the university community and to the people of California. It is our fervent hope that the regents will rescind this invitation and seek advice elsewhere.â
As some of you know, I have written critically of Summers in the past, but this is ridiculous, the height of political correctness. The shame of it is not just that the UC system regents have caved on an important principle (free speech), but also that other universities might, in the future, simply choose not to invite Summers and other controversial speakers, lest the PC police get up in arms….
11 Responses
9/15/2007 8:58 am
” who has come to symbolize gender and racial prejudice “
What a joke. This is how lazily created media narratives turn into fact.
Disgusting intellectual laziness. Shame on these petitioners. I’m serious. And shame on the Regents.
SE
9/15/2007 10:06 am
Even those of us petty enough to join the discussion that was Knockoutgate believe that this is awful. All he symbolizes is someone with poor social skills. I could see banning him from a Miss Manners summer camp, but that’s about it.
9/15/2007 10:49 am
What’s with these UC people rescinding invitations left and right? There was just the matter of the dean at UC-Irvine exciting new law school.
9/15/2007 4:20 pm
I agree. Ridiculous.
9/15/2007 5:27 pm
Well, rescinding invitation is not, in any way, a violation of his free-speech rights.
Although I think it is overall an unhealthy act. If he’s not going to give a talk entitled “Genetic engineering: the only solution to gender inequality”, I don’t see what harm his talk could do.
9/15/2007 5:34 pm
It’s not a violation of his rights, no, but it’s the kind of thing that puts pressure on everyone to curtail discourse that some group or other might deem unacceptable.
9/15/2007 7:10 pm
Richard, 5:27 has you dead to rights. You shouldn’t have invoked ‘free speech'; it just encourages imprecision elsewhere.
9/15/2007 7:12 pm
Of course this is stupid and embarrassing. But would it would have been stupid and embarrassing if Summers were still president?
9/15/2007 7:15 pm
It’s not a competition, SE. (You have imbibed the Harvard ethos!)
9/15/2007 7:25 pm
And anyway, as W&M can tell you, rescinding an invitation can have a chilling effect on free speech. Summers and the two scholars can still say what they want, but there’s certainly pressure not to voice the entirety of your opinions when they prompt this kind of reaction.
9/15/2007 8:42 pm
But free speech is a *constitutional* principle, not a societal one.
Peer pressure is not a human-rights violation.
Literal-minded when imprecision seems to me to matter, or when literal-mindedness is funny,
SE