The contrast between the reaction by academia to Summers versus their reaction to Ward Churchill is quite stark, and does not reflect well on the institution.

Or, perhaps, academics take Larry Summers--former Treasury Secretary, Harvard President, wunderkind--more seriously than Ward Churchill.

And therefore hold Summers to a higher standard? I suppose that's possible. But then we must ask why someone who is "not to be taken seriously" was given tenure in the first place.

Tenure is awarded prospectively based on retroactive achievements. Noam Chomsky, for instance, was not awarded tenure for his political views. And, anyway, there are large numbers of people with foolish views who hold tenure. There are very few presidents of Harvard, and even fewer with the international and academic reputation that Summers has.

Granted. Nevertheless, the almost-universal response to Churchill was "I abhor his comments but support his right to make them," whereas the reaction of a significant number of academics to Summers was something like "How dare he say that!" and calling for his head. I really doubt many of Summers' critics are thinking "If he were merely a tenured professor at a state university this might be acceptable, but..."

Hmm, maybe Summers should take a page out of Churchill's playbook.

Eric, I'll take the bait. If he were merely a tenured faculty member at a state university, his statements would probably be acceptable. It would also help if he had any actual research expertise on the topic he was discussing.

It is harder to get an education at Harvard than it is to get into Harvard. With the release of the transcripts (after trying a coverup)it will take a D-10 Dozer to scrape the crap off of the pea brained politically correct mouthy faculty. They are a lot of losers.

Mayor Koch had a lengthy comment on this matter worth reading. The subject is important. Remember, college graduates come in time to know vastly more than their professors because of the broadness of their life experiences. Letting a few faculty bird brains out of their cages is a public policy mistake.

In comparing Churchill and Summers, it's extremely important to note that there have been pretty much no calls for Summers to lose his professorship, just his presidency. Professorships are guarded by the norms of academic freedom, as well they should be; presidencies are not so guarded at all, not least of all because doing politics is part of the job description. So it's not a matter of holding the two men to different standards, but the two jobs.

That's also why, if Summers were just a faculty member at a big state university -- or, I would add, just a faculty member at Harvard -- there would have been nothing like the hue and cry.

(Is "hue" spelled right, for that usage? It looks funny on the page.)

But Phil, it's not the two men or the two jobs that are being judged by different standards, but two ideas.

Churchill pissed all over the graves of the victims of the 9/11 attacks and has essentially publicly declared his sympathy with al-Qaeda. Very few (if any) academics are calling for his head.

Summers merely raised the possibility of innate gender differences as one of many reasons that may in part explain the persistent gap between male and female representation in fields like physics and chemistry. He didn't even endorse the idea, but only raised it as something to be investigated. For this, he is being pilloried.

Balta,

I give you credit for being a much more reasonable person than most of those calling for Summers' head. But if you really think Summers should be dismissed for his recent remarks--indeed, if you think he did anything wrong by making them--I've lost a little bit of respect for you.

Eric, first grant me that I really don't care that much about who's running Harvard, given that I'm on the opposite coast, but from most of what I've paid attention to, this latest incident is not the only reason people have to be unhappy with Summers, but instead there has been discontent with him for some time. Yglesias comments on it here.

To use a familiar reference for most of the writers at this site; Bobby Knight getting angry at a kid who said "Hey Knight" to him would not necessarily have led to his dismissal on its own. But when there are enough people annoyed with the man in the first place, it becomes the icing on the cake.

As President of Harvard, Summers is in the unique positition of having everything he says be analyzed as though he were speaking for both himself and for the school. Caltech's President David Baltimore, who I have dealt with on some of these sorts of matters, does an admirable job of toeing this line; its clear he's unhappy with some of the politics in both this state and the nation, but when he speaks out on an issue, he's very careful about the way he speaks out, the forum he chooses, and what he says, because he knows he's not just speaking as Nobel laureate David Baltimore, he's speaking as the president of one of the most highly regarded institutions in the world.

So, back to Summers; should he lose his job over the matter? I dunno, and I really don't care. As far as I'm concerned, he didn't do anything more egregious than what Bobby Knight did to get himself fired from Indiana. But the people at each institution have the right to define where they want the line drawn for the people who represent them. So if Harvard's faculty wants to say that it is beyond acceptable for their administrator to go out and give speeches like the one in question at a time when Harvard's faculty hiring policies with regards to women are already coming under question, then I wouldn't see a problem with it. On the other hand, if Harvard were to choose to give the guy another chance, i wouldn't really have a problem either.

One way of thinking about this is in terms of what it means to be 'calling for someone's head' here. If all one wants to mean by 'calling for someone's head' is 'seeking that they lose their current job', then one would be right that people have sought Churchill's head but not Summers' -- but then the fact that they hold very different jobs with very different kinds of responsibilities is relevant. As I noted above, the job of president requires academic political sensitivity, whereas the job of tenured professor is defined so as to allow fairly maximal political insensitivity. It's the jobs, not the ideas, that explains the difference.

If what one means by 'calling for someone's head' is 'seeking to have them removed from their professorship', then one would be just plain wrong: people are not generally, in that sense, calling for Summers' head. And I think if a few people were doing so loudly, then I very much believe that you'd hear the same defenses of him that we hear now for Churchill. So, in this sense, both men are not generally being head-called.

And if what one means by 'calling for someone's head' is 'decrying what they said as poorly informed, bad scholarship, etc.', then one would be wrong about Churchill, since I've heard pretty few defenders of the quality of his work. So, in this sense, both men are being head-called, and perhaps not even equally but more so against Churchill, because I've heard a lot more academic defenses of the content of Summers' claims than I have of Churchill's.

So, on any plausible construal of head-calling, either (i) the head-calling differential can be put down pretty much entirely to the differences in the jobs being head-called, and not the ideas; (ii) there's no differential in head-calling; or (iii) if anything people are head-calling more against Churchill than against Summers.

but when he speaks out on an issue, he's very careful about the way he speaks out, the forum he chooses, and what he says

Indeed, prudent steps, but I would say that Summers' probably also took them. His remarks only came out because someone had an unreasonable--even hysterical--reaction to them and leaked them to the press out of context.

I'd also say that if the faculty discontent is a sign not so much of an intolerant academy but an intra-Harvard convulsion, then sure, I don't much care. But so long as the public face of this squabble centres around Summers' remarks, the former perception is going to have ill consequences.

Certainly the outrage towards Summers would not have precipitated if he taught at a less reputable state university. I recall a FSU psychology professor stating that blacks are innately less intelligent than other races. Here, I only remember my local Florida paper reporting this case and never saw a mention of it anywhere else. Nevertheless, I cannot fathom the lukewarm response towards Churchhill in the academic community, as opposed to the inordinate outrage directed towards Summers.

Matt's point is well taken. Even if science could prove the IQ difference of races one could NOT mention that then fact at Harvard. In fact, they are so intolerant of that sort of science that speakers on the subject are shouted down. Jensen, Murray's co-author, and several others don't even do work in the area because it is no longer politically correct.

I don't see where you're getting 'lukewarm response', in terms of the academic reaction to Churchill. Pretty much everyone I've read has started off by saying that the guy's clearly a moron & completely rejected what he had said. That's hardly lukewarm. Now, there has generally been a lot more attention paid to & discussion about Summers, but I'd suggest that's for at least two reasons that don't really have anything to do with the ideological content of what either one said.

First, there's nothing really to talk about with Churchill -- what he said was simply dumb & obscene, and that's that. But with Summers, there's lots to say, in terms of addressing the relevant science, speculating on the actual causes of gender asymmetries & possible remedies, and so on. So we may say less about Churchill because after the initial PASWO, there's not much to be done.

Second, and I'll just speak for myself here while suggesting that I'm probably not alone in this: I just plain don't expect better from the average professor of ethnic studies. There are some people in that field who are really great, but on the whole the demand for people in that field (or maybe 'field') has far outstripped the actual available talent. It's generally a pretty stagnant backwater of academia, and if the Horowitzites just wanted to take over those departments, I'd offer it to them with my blessing. But on the other hand, I do expect better -- both in terms of awareness of the relevant science, and in terms of knowing not to offer raw speculation in a forum like the one in question -- from any President of Harvard University, and indeed from Larry Summers in particular. So, while I'm offended by Churchill, I'm not repeatedly & wrothfully offended by him because I pretty much expect that kinda crap from guys like him. But I'm pretty annoyed by Summers, and in a way worth commenting on at length, because I'm startled to see such sloppy reasoning come from someone I had (and generally still do have, despite the incident) such respect for.

Balta, thanks for clarifying that you don't really care whether Summers remains Harvard's president...

But when there are enough people annoyed with the man in the first place, it becomes the icing on the cake.

I think your analogy with Knight is very apt. In both cases, the incident is not so much "the icing on the cake" as it is a convenient excuse for getting rid of someone you've wanted to be rid of for some time, but lacked a specific cause for doing so.