News Roundup: Lawrence Summers, Free Speech, more

Plenty of important news from over the past few days:

In a sad blow to academic freedom, Harvard president Lawrence Summers has resigned from the university under heavy pressure from ultra-liberal faculty members. While Summers had butted heads with many left-leaning professors during his tenure, the turning point came when he dared to utter the politically incorrect statement that male dominance in science and engineering could contain a genetic component.

Regardless of whether Summers is correct (and let's be honest - he certainly might be; men and women are obviously physically different, so the possibility of innate gender differences in other areas at least exists), it is outrageous that these faculty members booted him for merely expressing the opinion. This is a clear demonstration of the lack of intellectual diversity at many of our top universities, and the biggest losers will be the schools themselves, as such episodes can only diminish their reputations for quality education.

More on free speech and its limitations: Notorious British anti-Semite David Irving pleaded guilty in Austria to charges of denying the Holocaust and was sentenced to three years in prison. Many conservative writers, however, have posited that no matter how vile his statements, Irving's jail sentence is unwarranted due to freedom of speech. I understand these writers' concerns, but I must respectfully disagree with their assessments. I am, of course, a vigorous advocate of free speech of all sorts, but even in a free society, hate speech concerning genocide must not be tolerated. Perhaps Irving's sentence was too harsh, but formally denying the Holocaust should certainly be illegal.

This, by the way, is very different than the free speech issues involving the Danish cartoons. Yes, they may have been offensive and distasteful, but in no way were they hate speech on the level of denying the Holocaust. On the same token, if someone denied a genocide involving Muslim or any other victims (such as those in Sudan today), I would equally support prosecution of that person under hate speech crimes as well.

More on the cartoons as well: In light of recent violence in Nigeria and around the world, here is an insightful allegory that sharply exposes the outrageous Muslim hypocrisy that has continued into this past week.

But good news confirmed: Europe is finally starting to awaken to its large problem of hostile Islamic immigrants within a multicultural society. Of course, the linked reference being a mainstream media article, the writer tries to portray Europe's reaction as almost a bad thing. But the truth nevertheless emerges that the Continent has at last begun to respond to the increasingly violent Islamofascists in its midst.

On a related note, an L.A. Times columnist demonstrates just how mainstream media-reported news fails to accurately reflect trends in the real world.

And finally, some heartwarming news, as sent in by a reader.

Comments

[Verdant]

Hi Surfer.

I just saw where The Wall Street Journal referred to a piece in the L.A. Times regarding Summers. The L.A, Times piece indicated that many Harvard students sided with Summers! I didn't realize this...

The Los Angeles Times reports that many Harvard students sided with Summers and against the faculty wackos:
Somewhere in the controversy surrounding Summers is evidence of a change in campus politics, one professor said: These days, it is not unusual for students to be to the political right of their professors.
"This is a sort of 'I'm-not-a-feminist-but' generation," said J. Lorand Matory, a professor of anthropology and of African and African American studies. "I don't know if the word is 'conservative' as much as 'careerist.' " . . .
Harry Lewis, a computer science professor and former dean of Harvard College who left under pressure from Summers, said campus politics here had been shifting for decades, as more students from less affluent backgrounds enrolled.
A more diverse group, they are also "eager to prosper and less willing to take risks by rebelling," Lewis said. His upcoming book, "Excellence Without a Soul: How a Great University Forgot Education," traces what he considers to be the decline in the quality of education at Harvard. It's left them far more likely to support the power structure, he said.
"The Harvard student body looks more like America than the Harvard faculty," he said. "That's what's happened."
If the Democratic Party chooses to look more like the Harvard faculty than America, voters have a ready alternative in the Republican Party. Academia is the left's biggest remaining redoubt, but here too there may be alternatives. During our vacation we paid a call on Ken Starr, dean of the law school at Pepperdine University, and he told us with great enthusiasm of how undergraduates on campus were doing serious work--actually studying great books, no less.
This ought to be perfectly unremarkable. That a university administrator boasts about it tells you something about the state of higher education in America. But it may be that in the coming years schools like Pepperdine will benefit as those like Harvard squander their prestige on left-wing faculty politics.

[Solid Surfer]

That's very true - often, the students at most universities are much more conservative and less radical than the faculty. Take a look at this website for more info: http://www.studentsforacademicfreedom.org/