Larry Summers: Still Banned in California
Posted on September 17th, 2007 in Uncategorized | 11 Comments »
The Crimson updates the story of Summers being disinvited to speak by the UC Board of Regents, and is the first news outlet that I’ve seen to carry a statement from Summers.
…Summers called the University of California system a ânational treasure.â
âI regret missing the chance to discuss issues facing universities with the regents,â he said. âI often participate in discussions of this kind, and find that I always learn a great deal from the exchange of views and am sorry that the regents do not feel the same way.â
This is what’s known as a slam dunk. The PC cops in the UC system certainly made this easy for Summers. All he had to do was take the high road, and he makes them look like idiots….and of course Maureen Stanton, one of the petition organizers, did not answer the Crimson when it requested an interview. She should. Going underground now only makes her look like, having acted to squelch open discussion once, she is doing it again. And Stanton, who has a Harvard Ph.d. and is an accomplished scientist, should know better…..
11 Responses
9/17/2007 9:31 am
Richard:
1) You are not linking to the right article, which is at:
http://www.thecrimson.com/article.aspx?ref=519535.
2) Given discussion of the last couple of days, you might have also quoted the following from the article:
‘Several Harvard professors, including some critics of Summersâ presidency, came to his defense over the weekend after the decision to rescind the invitation was reported.
Judith L. Ryan, who called for a vote of no confidence against Summers in 2006, said that the authors of the petition âhave fallen prey to a simplification that became widespread in media reports.â’
9/17/2007 10:25 am
Sorry, Richard. I’ll fix the link now.
9/17/2007 12:29 pm
Readers of this blog understand why I made the point about the media simplification. I wish the Crimson article could have given a little context-I certainly gave an explanation in the e-mail I sent to them. Unfortunately, I didn’t realize it was to run this morning, and so I didn’t get back to the reporter in time.
9/17/2007 3:08 pm
“Context” is especially important when interpreting the controversial statements that ultimately cost Summers his job. Unfortunately, efforts at interpretaion have been as clumsy as Summers’ remarks at the NBER conference back in 2005, with some people working to deliberately pervert his original comments, to those (primarily in the media) who have just been too lazy when trying to file their 800 words or come up with a catchy soundbyte.
I don’t expect people to feel sympathy for Summers, but I would hope that - no matter how controversial his comments were, or were intepreted to be - he’d be allowed the opportunity to speak in an open forum moderated by his peers without prejudice.
9/17/2007 9:47 pm
3:08 PM, you’ve fallen prey yourself to “the simplification that became widespread in media reports” as judith ryan described it by saying “the controversial statements that ultimately cost Summers his job”. They didn’t…not by a long shot. There were myriad other reasons…many of them described in Richard’s book Harvard Rules which was published before those remarks were ever made. And they weren’t the reason for the vote of no confidence by the FAS and other fallout from his five year term that resulted in Summers’ resignation. There were some good reasons for ending his term and everybody seems to have forgotten them. Those “clumsy” remarks were a silly reason not to let the man speak…and this just makes him look good to boot. I may not know much but I can read and understand and do the basic math…and I have a long memory.
lmpaulsen
9/17/2007 10:28 pm
sorry to be crass but how much per speech is summers getting these days? and, what would a speech such as this one be worth?
9/18/2007 2:40 am
lmpaulsen correctly refocuses attention on the many reasons that likely contributed to the Corporation’s decision to fire Summers. But I would argue that the so-called clumsy remarks are not silly reasons for the UC Board of Regents to rescind Summers’ invitation to speak. Summers got into trouble outside Harvard by having the gall to speak in an authoritative manner about matters for which a degree in economics is no preparation. His ill-informed remarks were then appropriated to lend credence to discredited positions by virtue of the academic stature that accompanies the Harvard presidency. In an academic, arrogance and irresponsibility are sufficient reasons to withdraw an invitation.
9/18/2007 6:48 am
“arrogance and irresponsibility are sufficient reasons to withdraw an invitation.”
No they’re not. (Though they might be reasons not to invite someone in the first place.) Moreover they’re not the reasons given on the petition that caused the rescission.
SE
9/18/2007 9:55 am
With all due respect, it was the controversial statements that ultimately cost Summers his job, because they brought public focus to what had otherwise been a private debate to that point. Conditions might have been ripe for internal conflicts to blow up, but had it not been for Nancy Hopkins’ condemnation and walkout of Summers’ NBER speech… and specifically her subsequent comments to The Boston Globe and other media organizations, the fuse wouldn’t have been lit, at least not for a while a least.
Whatever her intent, and whatever preconceptions she may or may not have had about Summers, she was the one who put a bug in the ear of the local media, the story developing it’s own momentum from there.
Granted, Richard was well and done with Harvard Rules by the time Summers made his remarks (although the book was published after they were made), and it might be argued that his effort could have promoted greater public interest in Summers much as the case was with the wider media.
Either way, internal discontent without benefit of an accelerant could likely have made the debate exclusive to the halls of academe, and simply a blip in the public consciousness.
9/18/2007 10:39 am
The NBER remarks focussed attention on Summers in 2005, and played a significant role in the vote of lack of confidence that Spring. As I never cease pointing out, the motion of lack of confidence that I put forward the following year, in Spring 2006, was based on a whole array of reasons. Except for an article in the Boston Globe about Summers’s untruthfulness in his dealings with former dean Peter Ellison, the media has largely refused to address the additional issues that came to the forefront in February 2006. Let me just say it again: Summers’s failure to lead by persuasion, his lack of integrity (toward Ellison and others, and also in the Shleifer affair), and his narrow, presentist vision for Harvard’s academic mission were the matters that brought about his downfall. It didn’t help that he had made the comment about women in science the previous year, nor that he had reprimanded Cornel West for his CDs. It was the entire cluster of issues that made Summers ill-suited to be the President of Harvard.
The faculty members who criticized Summers in Spring 2006 were not limited to the “politically correct.” The charge of anti-Semitism is so ludicrous that it shouldn’t be dignified by a response.
9/18/2007 10:52 am
In the words of Bill Belichek…”we’re moving on”