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Lawrence Summers, former president of Harvard University, had been invited to speak at the University of California, Davis. But the University, a few weeks ago, rescinded that invitation. More than 150 faculty members signed a petition protesting his appearance, saying that Summers “has come to symbolize gender and racial prejudice in academia.” Christina Hoff Sommers reports that Davis ecology professor Maureen Stanton was “appalled and stunned that someone like Summers would be invited to speak.” You might remember that Summers eventually lost his job for stating publicly that there are differences between men and women and that explains why some academic disciplines do not have as many women. Although he did not always show proper decorum, Summers has science in back of him, despite his provocative way of stating things. Sommers writes: “Yet the scientific literature on why men and women enter different fields is legitimate, robust, complex and fascinating. What is appalling is that leading academic institutions would try to shut down the discussion and get away with it.”
A few weeks ago, the American Enterprise Institute brought together top researchers on sex differences. Richard Haier, professor of psychology at the University of California, Irvine, using the latest and most advanced MRI brain imaging technology, demonstrated that male and female brains have strikingly distinct architectures and process information differently. He argued that “there is so much we do not know and so much yet to discover about brain biology and sex differences, and perhaps even career choices.” Also, Simon Baron-Cohen, professor at Cambridge University, also argued at the conference that men are on average wired to be better systematizers and women to be better empathizers. Perhaps that is the reason that women dominate in empathy-centered fields such as early childhood education, social work and psychology, while men are overrepresented in car repair, oil drilling and electrical engineering.
Amazingly and appallingly, the National Academy of Sciences in 2006 called for Congress to hold hearings on gender bias in the sciences and called on federal agencies to “move immediately” to apply anti-discrimination laws such as Title IX to academic science (not English) departments. They contended that “the time for action is now.” This is a reckless and one-sided call that has more to do with ideology than science. The case of Lawrence Summers at UC-Davis is also more about politics than science. Our universities are to be places for open and free discussion of ideas, not about rigid ideology. When it comes to gender differences, apparently there is not to be any free and open discussion, for the case is closed!! No it is not!!
See the helpful article by Christina Hoff Sommers in the Wall Street Journal (16 October 2007). |
