I was struck at how certain Harvard Professor Howard Georgi is about all this, speaking to the New York Times on Friday:
What bothers me is the consistent assumption that innate differences rather than socialization is responsible for some of the issues [Summers] talks about," said Howard Georgi, a physics professor who has been part of a successful effort in Harvard’s physics department to recruit more women for tenured positions.
"It’s crazy to think that it’s an innate difference," Professor Georgi added. "It’s socialization. We’ve trained young women to be average. We’ve trained young men to be adventurous."
Case closed. A few years ago Georgi was "not an expert" on gender discrimination, but nevertheless felt qualified to publish a "tentative theory" (what Summers might call a "guess") about it anyway. These days, Georgi does seem somewhat . . . invested in his own approach to the issue. It is the end of history at Harvard — the time for "tentative theories" is past.
And that may be the heart of the problem — one that has led to the amazing situation best expressed by Havard Law School Professor Bruce Hay in his letter to The Crimson on Friday:
"I am stunned by the notion that Harvard would force anyone out of his or her position here — whether student, staff, faculty, or administration — because of the view that person expressed at an academic conference."
Stanley Kurtz reviewed the transcript of Summers’ January 14 presentation and found something he thinks "helps to explain this whole flap."
The portion of the transcript on which Kurtz focused is not the lengthy discussion of "different availability of aptitude at the high end" (which is a different concept than the "innate ability" of individuals, but let’s move on). It is the relatively brief potion in which Summers discusses the "further questions" that should be answered about "discrimination" and affirmative action.
Here is what Summers said when he got to the issue of discrimination and how to address it:
What’s to be done? And what further questions should one know the answers to? . . .
When major diversity efforts are mounted, and consciousness is raised, and special efforts are made, and you look five years later at the quality of the people who have been hired during that period, how many are there who have turned out to be much better than the institutional norm who wouldn’t have been found without a greater search?
And how many of them are . . . what the right-wing critics of all of this suppose represent clear abandonments of quality standards?
I don’t know the answer, but I think if people want to move the world on this question, they have to be willing to ask the question in ways that could face any possible answer that came out. . . .
Summers was asking that affirmative action be tested by a scientific inquiry — not judged by the preconceptions of either the left (raised consciousness as the solution) or the right (abandonment of standards as the problem). And he expressly said that he didn’t know the answer. He wanted it studied. He was speaking at an academic conference.
And then — in the passage that particularly interested Kurtz — Summers noted that he had "been exposed, by those who want to see the university hiring practices changed to favor women more and to assure more diversity, to two very different views."
One group has urged that we make the processes consistently more clear-cut and objective, based on papers, numbers of papers published, numbers of articles cited, objectivity, measurement of performance, no judgments of potential, no reference to other things, because if it’s made more objective, the subjectivity that is associated with discrimination and which invariably works to the disadvantage of minority groups will not be present.
I’ve also been exposed to exactly the opposite view, that those criteria and those objective criteria systematically bias the comparisons away from many attributes that those who contribute to the diversity have: a greater sense of collegiality, a greater sense of institutional responsibility.
Somebody ought to be able to figure out the answer to the question of, if you did it more objectively versus less objectively, what would happen.
Then you can debate whether you should or whether you shouldn’t, if objective or subjective is better. But that question ought to be a question that has an answer, that people can find.
Kurtz thinks "it’s pretty clear from this transcript that [Summers opponents] deeper goal is to get rid of Summers because he is asking too many uncomfortable questions about the way affirmative action works."
In this talk, Summers calls for research on whether affirmative action does what it claims to do. . . . or do these searches only yield professors of middling or low quality?
Summers also points out contradictions in what diversity advocates are asking for. Some of them want faculty picked on purely objective criteria . . . . But other diversity advocates want the opposite. . . . Summers asks, which is it? . . .
By calling for objective studies of which strategy actually works, Summers is exposing the failings and contradictions of the whole diversity enterprise.
Jonah Goldberg says that in offering a "tentative theory" that did not place the blame wholly on "discrimination," Summers touched the third rail of American academic life:
Of course, he’s making a statistical point. There are more male geniuses and there are more male morons while women tend to be in the middle of the distribution. This doesn’t mean, at least from what he’s saying, that there aren’t women who are just as brilliant as the most brilliant men, it’s just that there are fewer of them compared to men.
He allows that better socialization and tougher anti-discrimination efforts could and should boost the numbers of women at the top, but he seems to believe the underlying statistical difference reflects a basic reality that can never be completely erased.
And there you have it. Because he believes something the Harvard faculty do not want to concede even might be true, he must say it is not true.
That fits the pattern of inquisitions perfectly. Recant what you believe to be scientifically true because a sophisticated mob says you must.
I’m not prepared to say whether Summers’ analysis was right or wrong (neither was he). In his presentation, he was advancing a tentative theory and asking for more research, rather than a vote.
But for having the temerity to suggest that the question is open, that we need to know more before we answer it, and that the issues are not amenable to the preconceptions of politically correct thought, he is about to be impeached by a sophisticated mob.
The Harvard faculty "emergency meeting" reconvenes tomorrow. It is an important moment in academic history, and the blogosphere will be watching.
Harvard alums can sign a petition and/or send a letter to the faculty or the president by going here. Others can use these email addresses:
President Lawrence Summers: lawrence_summers@harvard.edu
Nancy Maull, Executive Dean of the Faculty: nmaull@harvard.edu.
UPDATE: Wizbang had good coverage of this issue Friday here and here. (Hat tip: