Here is the full text of the introduction (ultimately removed) of the no-confidence resolution against Lawrence Summers written by the Harvard faculty. Notes The WS’s “Scrapbook,” “That introduction made explicit the infantile leftist agenda of Summers’s detractors. It is worth reading in full, and is reproduced below in all its politically correct glory:”
While the Faculty gratefully acknowledges Mr. Summers’ apologies for remarks minimizing the innate capacities of women and for lapses of respect in his communication with faculty members, the Faculty also wishes to register its dissent from a number of public pronouncements by the President that would otherwise appear to represent us collectively, and to urge limits on the proposed expansion of presidential prerogatives.
Over the past three and a half years, faculty members have discerned in the conduct of President Summers a pattern of aggressive communication and inattention to faculty opinions, both of which are inconsistent with the principles of free inquiry and the democratic management of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences. The Faculty acknowledges Mr. Summers’ promise to improve his communication with us, but we remain concerned about the substance of Mr. Summers’ apparently ongoing convictions about the capacities and rights not only of women but also of African Americans, third-world nations, gay people, and colonized peoples. We are concerned that Mr. Summers’ latest remarks minimizing the innate intellectual capacities of women reflect Mr. Summers’ tendency to vocalize his speculations without due regard for either the standards of scholarship or the effect of careless pronouncements, particularly from the president of one of the world’s leading universities, on the human beings concerned.
Mr. Summers has demonstrated little concern for his role as the foremost public representative of the University. Yet he has moved to increase the powers of his office significantly, through, for example, the creation of “divisional appointments.” For these reasons, and in the spirit of freedom of expression, the assembled faculty members wish officially to register dissent from Mr. Summers’ stated opinions regarding the innate capacities of subordinate populations, the wisdom of dumping in third-world nations, the authorized presence on campus of organizations that infringe upon the equal rights of gay people, and the proposition that the criticism of Israeli military policy toward the Palestinians is inherently anti-Semitic.
We, the Faculty, vote to dissent from these positions of Mr. Summers, to demand that they not be employed in the governance of the University or in restricting the free speech of professors and departments, and to halt any further expansion of presidential prerogatives that will facilitate the propagation of these positions.
[My emphases]
The irony of offering a vote of no-confidence on the grounds that the free speech of the President disagreed with the free speech of the Faculty—and so threw into question the non-negotiable rectitude of the Faculty’s assumptions (which, in turn, damaged real free speech, the freedom to speak free from the “insensitivity” of challenge)—is enough to make Lenny Bruce roll over in his grave, have himself a cigarette, and then kill himself all over again.
Gotta love that turn of phrase.
I thought that part of the whole PC/multi-culti movement’s objective was to point out that people are ‘differently-abled’, not handicapped. That just because you’re ‘different’ doesn’t mean that you’re any less…
Summers’ remarks on women and hard sciences looked to be more to the point of outlining questions to be answered rather than any sort of denigration. Although that the faculty involved was on the lookout for offense is a topic much covered here.
This disconnect in the way that these ‘champions’ of diversity react versus their professed creed—that someone’s life choices do not define the potential capabilities of that person—would seem to be fertile ground for more commentary than I have seen here to date.
Jeff—in the context of identity politics, how far would you estimate that such a group can/will travel in such directions before the fundamental concepts of the group identity break down? I don’t see the group breaking up in one go, but find it hard to reconcile large numbers of people continuing in such an identity-group when the actions of the group continue to contradict its own stated principles, once those contradictions are brought to light.
In a lot of the commentary, you have pointed out the fundamental issues of identity politics. But what is the prognosis? Groups will fight to retain their temporal authority, but is the lifeblood of the group identity the gullibility of that group? Or that members will not wish to believe that they have been gulled into supporting actions against their stated interest in that group? How, or rather, *does* the group lose power by anything other than attrition?
Aggressive communication?
He shouted a lot, did he?
The key point here is that the text of the introduction of the resolution was removed. Why? Likely because the faculty was uncomfortable with the political statements made. Here are some comments on the original statement, posted last month:
Jeff, you’re criticizing the Harvard faculty saying “The irony of offering a vote of no-confidence on the grounds that the free speech of the President disagreed with the free speech of the Faculty….” But it’s clear that the Harvard faculty didn’t offer a vote of no-confidence based on the contents of this introduction.
Llama School:
It may be true that the Harvard faculty didn’t offer a vote of no-confidence based on the contents of this introduction, but it did vote for the resolution written by (and reflecting the thinking of) the clown who wrote the introduction.
I suspect the removal had a good deal more to do with some faculty members’ concern about public reaction than with inherent disagreement.
The Harvard humanities faculty seems to be intent on destroying the value of the Harvard franchise built up over the past 370-odd years. The universities are fast becoming as irrelevant as they were in the 16th and 17th centuries, when the scientific revolution and the birth of modern thought occurred everywhere but the universities.
Does anyone else find it ironic that in the face of criticism that could easily be disproved if untrue, that the reaction of the offended was to cry until the mean man went away?
Yeah, that’ll show ‘em.
FAKE BUT ACCURATE.
Here’s the interesting thing to question: were the universities EVER what they were cracked up to be–citadels of classical liberalism and free inquiry and debate I mean?
Or was that just the rep the cultivated, with the truth always being that it was total bullshit?
Does anybody know when the introduction was removed? Before or after the no confidence vote?
Veritas my tush! (veritush perhaps?)
Now, off with his head…I mean, to the reeducation camp with him!
Oh please. They pulled it because it made their biases and agenda too obvious.
It was Dershowitz, incidentally, who mentioned this. I just agreed.