Twenty years ago, Larry Summers gave his infamous speech in which he declared that the shortage of women in science was due to their intellectual deficiencies — women just weren’t smart enough to succeed in science. It was all part of a disturbing favor for genetic determinism that still afflicts science.
Just days before the 17 January national holiday, an African-American professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) charged that racism was a factor in his tenure denial. And on 14 January the president of Harvard University, Lawrence Summers, triggered a national uproar when he said at an academic conference that genes and personal choices may help explain why so few women are leaders in science and engineering fields. Summers later apologized, but his contrite words aren’t expected to end the controversy.
No one denies that science and engineering faculty members at major research universities remain overwhelmingly white and male, despite large numbers of women and minorities at the undergraduate and graduate levels. But why this is the case is an explosive subject. Summers lit the fuse last week at a meeting on women and minorities in science and engineering, put on by the nonprofit National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) in Cambridge, Massachusetts, when he cited data showing that more boys than girls score at the high and low ends on standardized math and science tests. Nearly simultaneously, MIT biologist James Sherley charged publicly that colleagues undervalue his research because he is black.
According to participants at the off-the-record NBER meeting, Summers argued that women typically do not work the 80-hour weeks common to professions like law, business, or science. And while noting that socialization and bias may slow the progress of women, he cited the gender variation in test scores as a possible explanation for the larger number of men at the top of the professional ladder.
It’s true that that stupid speech had consequences. A year later, that (and some financial conflicts of interest, but don’t we all expect that of economics/business guys? They’re an unethical bunch) led to him stepping down from his position as president of Harvard. But don’t worry for him, he then bounced right back, serving as Director of the White House United States National Economic Council under Obama, and more recently, he’s on the board of directors for OpenAI (another collection of lying opportunists who don’t even know what ethics is.) He’s still a tenured professor at Harvard.
Ironically, a writer for the Harvard Salient, a conservative student paper at that university is now defending Summers, claiming that his lecture on women’s inadequacy was the start of “cancel culture.”
Twenty years ago, Harvard President Lawrence Summers delivered a speech at an economics conference which, as a later Crimson article asserts, “started the war.” As a student in 2005, I viewed the event as a simple battle between open inquiry and political correctness. As an alum looking back, I see it as the debut of what we know today as cancel culture.
That’s sort of true, in that “cancel culture” has been mysteriously ineffective at delivering real consequences to its targets. Please, please, please…you can get me fired for being politically incorrect if afterwards I’m brought in to advise the president and to take a seat on a very wealthy board.
Well, Larry Summers might be paying the price soon, as the heat from his association with Jeffrey Epstein rises. He has made a shame-faced admission. He wants out of the limelight!
“I am deeply ashamed of my actions and recognize the pain they have caused,” he told Politico in a statement.
“I take full responsibility for my misguided decision to continue communicating with Mr Epstein. While continuing to fulfill my teaching obligations, I will be stepping back from public commitments as one part of my broader effort to rebuild trust and repair relationships with the people closest to me.”
The left-leaning thinktank Center for American Progress told the Guardian that Summers is ending his position as “distinguished senior fellow”.
His comments come after lawmakers on both sides of the aisle urged companies and institutions to cut ties with Summers. Democratic senator Elizabeth Warren told CNN that Summers should be held accountable for his years-long relationship with Epstein.
This should have happened twenty years ago. For some reason, a lot of people have maintained and sought out relationships with this old arrogant asshole, why, I don’t know. He was poison in 2005, people should have run away from any association with him at all. It took a few words from Epstein to finally kill his career. Also, why did the Center for American Progress affiliate with him at all?
It’s Republicans who demonstrate the greatest hypocrisy, though.
A senior Trump administration official told Politico that institutions should end their association with Summers, given the relationship he had with Epstein, who referred to himself in one November 2018 message as Summers’ “wing man”.
“It’s shocking that Larry Summers remains a paid contributor to Bloomberg News, on the board of OpenAI and tenured at Harvard,” the anonymous source told Politico. “What more revelations about him and his “wing man” will it take for institutions to cut him loose? The British government immediately sacked their ambassador to the US over much less.”
Oh, really? He should have been denied various professional associations thanks to his friendly relationship with a known pedophile? Fine, I agree. Now apply the same reasoning to Epstein’s bestest buddy and fellow party animal, Donald Trump. What will it take for senior Trump administration officials to wake up and realize their boss is even more entangled in Epstein’s slimy web?
