Shots In The Dark

Maureen Dowd writes about the scientific differences between men and women in this column. Does anyone, including herself, have the slightest idea what she's talking about? Or was she just really, really hard up for a column topic?

Democracy is spreading. On Monday and Tuesday students in the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences (GSAS) will vote on the same resolutions that the faculty just approved. Here's the e-mail that's sent around by the Graduate Student Council, a group of about 50, including representatives from each academic department. (The website URL has been changed to protect the innocent voters.)

<<The Faculty have spoken, now it's your turn.

Last Tuesday the FAS faculty voted "lack of confidence" in President Summers. On Monday and Tuesday GSAS students will have the chance to vote on the same question. Harvard and the world want to know what thousands of graduate students think about their university president.

Polls will open from 7am Monday (March 21) and close at 5pm Tuesday (March 22). Log on to the weblink below between these hours to cast your anonymous vote.

It's a quick and easy process.

http://www.xxxx.yyy.zzz

The two questions are those offered to faculty at their vote last week.

The results are vital to the ongoing debate, and graduate student opinion is of great interest to faculty and the press.

Yours,

The Graduate Student Council>>

This New York Times piece raises an issue that I've been trying to follow lately: the conservative attack on Darwin and the theory of evolution.

(I say trying to follow because the attack is so ubiquitous, stories about it are increasingly commonplace.)

Key quote: <<Several Imax theaters, including some in science museums, are refusing to show movies that mention the subject [of evolution] - or the Big Bang or the geology of the earth - fearing protests from people who object to films that contradict biblical descriptions of the origin of Earth and its creatures.>>

Yup, there go those liberals again—waging war on Christianity.

Sarcasm aside, this is a truly ominous trend. It challenges the very notion of intellectual progress. In schools all over the country—not just in red states— children are being taught that evolution is just one theory among many, no better and maybe worse than creationism.

I have a suggestion for Larry Summers: This is the perfect subject for him to address. He's a great advocate of science; he's a leading public intellectual; and he's a university president.

Summers erred in January by relying on shaky science to draw dubious conclusions. He could do the country a great favor by speaking out in favor of real science.

Just like the National Organization for Men—who knew?

In any event, he too is on Larry Summers' side. His defense of Summers is subtly titled "Lawrence Summers and the Left's Thought Gulag."

It's worth considering the argument Limbaugh makes, not so much because it's serious, but because conservative pundits make this case so often that the sheer repetition of it may convince many.

First, Limbaugh dismisses the idea that Summers' leadership style is the source of faculty discontent. Instead, he says, it's all about Summers' remarks on women in science.

Key quote: "The FAS just could not abide the suggestion that women might have different intellectual strengths from men. It not only wouldn't accept Summers' apology, it virtually demanded his head and permanently tarnished his reputation."

(It virtually demanded his head? Well, did it or didn't it?)

The faculty reacted this way because it is politically correct, closed-minded, intolerant and liberal—which, according to Limbaugh, is thrice redundant.

Limbaugh then extrapolates from the Summers situation to attack not just Harvard, but "the Left" in general.

As he concludes, "The Left is increasingly intellectually bankrupt and delusional. But worse, it has become boorishly dictatorial, not even sparing would-be allies, like Clintonite Lawrence Summers, from its hellish wrath, if they not just to disagree with its dogma, but to express a willingness to consider ideas the 'code' forbids."

I like that—"the code." As if liberals all sign their names in blood in a secret book.

In high school, I took a class in logic which taught me to look out for such debate techniques as the straw man, the reductio ad absurdum, the false conclusion. Limbaugh uses all of these and more; the argument is so intellectually dishonest that anyone trying to take it on can get bogged down by all the little lies.

More important, I think, is the big lie: That there is such a thing as The Left—in a country with a Republican president, a Republican Congress, and Republican-dominated governorships and statehouses—and that it is powerful, intolerant, and politically correct.

Limbaugh's argument really doesn't have anything to do with Harvard. But it says a lot about how conservatives debase political discussion in order to gin up hysteria and rally their supporters.

Oh, and by the way, David Limbaugh is also an author. His book: Persecution—How Liberals Are Waging Political War Against Christianity. I'm sure it's equally convincing.

Apparently, and it's sticking up for Larry Summers. (Remember, a couple months ago the National Organization for Women called on Summers to resign.)

Key quote: <National Organization for Men (NOM) co-president Warren Farrell said, "Harvard's action reflects a new double standard: Nearly any negative statement can be made about men, but only positive statements can be made about women. Just imagine what would have occurred if Summers asserted that 'Men are just plain better human beings than women.'">

The mind reels.

It occurs to me that one fallout from the Summers era might well be a reexamination of the Harvard Corporation and changes in its structure.

Wouldn't it be a delicious irony if the man appointed by the Corporation to "shake things up" wound up toppling the Corporation?

Or will the Corporation conclude that survival in its current form requires cutting Summers loose?

Steve Bailey of the Boston Globe adds his voice to a growing number of thinkers raising doubts about the Corporation's role in Harvard's governance.

The key quote: "Summers can try to run the place like a top-down chief executive. But Harvard also needs a board that's up to the job of the 21st century. Harvard's president just lost an astounding vote of confidence by the faculty. Would its board have fared any better?"

The answer, I think, is that the Corporation would have fared even worse.

As I've suggested before, Harvard has a fundamental, structural governance problem. The powers of the Board of Overseers have been increasingly diminished. Meanwhile, the secretive, answerable-to-no one Corporation has grown stronger and stronger—and less and less diverse.

Three members of the seven-member board (Summers is one, ex officio) have left since Summers became president. One, Hanna Gray, is leaving, to be replaced by Nan Keohane, former president of Duke. (The token woman leaves to be replaced by--yes!--a token woman.)

Which means that four members of the board essentially owe their appointments to Summers. Plus the president makes five of seven.

If you were inclined to be paranoid, you could say that Summers has fundamentally taken control of the university governance structure.

If not, you could just ask whether the Corporation could possibly be an independent voice. Will it act in the best interests of the university? Or the man who appointed 56% of its members?

Sometime after the publication of my last book, American Son, I received a letter from a North Carolina pastor named Stan Easty, of St. Peter's Episcopal Church. The reverend Easty had read the book, and wanted to tell me how much he liked it. I had remembered John Kennedy well, he said, and he wished me luck in the future.

I try to write back to people who write me, and so I did with Reverend Easty. In the years since, we'd correspond from time to time via e-mail, usually around the holidays. We talked generally about politics and faith; Easty was a member of that seemingly shrinking but oh-so-important group, the religious left. Not long ago, he co-signed a letter to President Bush expressing doubt on the president's faith-based initiative plan.

The letter read, in part, "Partnerships between religion and government must be undertaken with great caution so as not to undermine the very integrity and freedom that allows both the followers and the institutions of religion to practice and keep faith in our nation.

"We urge you to protect the sacred role of religion in our nation by rejecting this avenue of infusing government funds into America's religious institutions."

This morning I received an e-mail from Rev. Easty's e-address informing me that Stan Easty had passed away, at home, with his wife of 60 years by his side.

I'm left with a feeling of deep sadness that I won't be hearing from Stan Easty anymore.

But even so: What a good man. What a good life.

Even President Bush is poking fun at Larry Summers, according to this report by Helen Thomas of the recent Gridiron Dinner in Washington.

The president's joke: "He said he was sorry Lawrence Summers, president of Harvard University , could not be there. Bush added that Summers -- who has outraged women by questioning their skills in the sciences -- was 'at the Madam Curie Awards Banquet.'”

Ouch.

Max Boot in the LA Times seconds the Boston Herald on tenure. His argument: tenure protects lefty academics by allowing them a) to say stupid things and b) to lash out against conservatives with impunity. "Harvard offers a good illustration of how harshly transgressions against liberal pieties are punished within academe," Boot argues. His solution. "Abolish tenure. Subject professors to the discipline of the marketplace like almost everyone else."

Sigh. This kind of argument is as silly as it is, unfortunately, commonplace.

First, let us reiterate this one more time: The uproar at Harvard is not merely about Larry Summers' recent remarks on women in the sciences. They were the match that lit an extant pile of kindling. The uproar is about management style and the direction of the university.

Second, as a private citizen Larry Summers can say whatever he wants. The president of Harvard can not, just as the president of the United States can not, just as the Treasury secretary can not. (A fact Larry Summers knew about the Treasury but has had trouble learning at Harvard.)

When you are in a position of immense power, you simply can not pop off on any subject that comes into your head. There are consequences—legal, professional, intellectual—that can impede your ability to lead. Imagine if Alan Greenspan made some incredibly irresponsible remark, and the stock market plummeted. Would conservatives then defend his right to free speech?

Max Boot uses the example of Ward Churchill to show just how bad tenure is. (Churchill's the University of Colorado professor who made some asinine remarks about 9/11 victims.) Look how hard it is to fire Churchill! Boot proclaims.

Call me crazy, but I'd argue that Churchill is a perfect example of why we need tenure—to allow professors to speak their mind without fear of being fired for doing so.

It'd be nice if provocative speech were always intelligent. But intelligent or no, professors will often say things that get politicians, pundits and the general public riled up. If they had to worry about losing their jobs every time they opened their mouths, they'd shut up—and our society would be much the worse off for it.

We want professors to say whatever's on their mind...especially if we know that we won't always like it. That's vital to a healthy, self-confident, and open-minded culture.

Today's editorial in the Boston Herald takes a predictable line: The problem at Harvard is that Summers "keeps treating his faculty as if they were, well, mere mortals - and not the spoiled and ever-so-tenured brats they have long been diagnosed as."

I'm struck by the hostility to tenure that often shows up in the remarks of those who support Summers. There's a kind of resentful implication that academics have the world's cushiest life in part because they can never be fired. Anti-intellectual critics of tenure and academia in general want Summers to take all these "spoiled" academics down a few pegs.

This line of attack has certain ironies.

Such as:

1) Larry Summers received tenure at age 28, so he was pretty happy about the system of tenure at the time.

2) Imagine what life would be like at Harvard now if there weren't tenure...you'd have a miserable campus and professors job-hunting as fast as they could.

3) Larry Summers, under normal circumstances, has a kind of virtual tenure in his job. Harvard presidents almost invariably serve as long as they want to. The last Harvard president who left before he wanted to served before the Civil War.

4) Members of the Harvard Corporation serve as long as they want to...and choose their own successors.

And, most important...

5) The Herald approvingly quotes history professor Stephan Thernstrom saying, "[The faculty vote] is very menacing. . .It is a very bad blow to the conception of academic freedom."

There is, of course, a glaring contradiction between attacking tenure on the one hand and defending academic freedom on the other. Simply put, you can't do both.

Well, I take that back. As the Herald shows, you can. You just don't have to worry about making sense.

Whatever goals Summers was working on this year, you can stick a fork in them—they're done.

1) The curricular review. That was supposed to be discussed at the meeting yesterday. Shock! It wasn't. And it won't be until next year, and Summers' status is clearer.

2) Fundraising. This has got to be devastating. I'm sure some alums who strongly support Summers will make a show of giving large gifts. But ask any fundraiser whether controversy is good for their work, and you'll get a quick two-letter answer. Maybe preceded by a four-letter word.

3) Allston. Who's going to sign off on any major decisions now?

4) Faculty hiring. Hmmm. If you were a professor at another university, might you have some doubts about moving to Harvard at the moment? There's a lot to be said for a collegial campus.

That's off the top of my head. But you can imagine that in offices and hallways all over Harvard this morning, the conversation is of little else...and the work of the university lies dormant.

Let's be honest: no one has a clue. We're talking about an event unprecedented in Harvard's 370-year history. There's no road map to the future.

But if you asked me to guess...there are really only three scenarios.

1) Summers hunkers down and quietly rebuilds his presidency. Over the years, from the ashes of defeat he reemerges wiser, stronger, a more judicious leader, and becomes one of Harvard's greatest presidents.

2) Summers resigns before Commencement in June.

3) In a year or so, once the dust settles, Summers resigns in a way that allows him to claim some measure of success as a "change agent."

Of those options, I'd say number three is the likeliest. The antipathy against Summers is too deep for him to erase it, even if he did change his style fundamentally, and that's hard to imagine. How do you go from being one way your entire life to a completely different style and personality?

As for number 2...I don't think Summers will resign this school year, if only because the Corporation wouldn't want him to. After all, they chose him, and they're defending him. If he goes anytime soon, it makes them look silly. And they already look dumb for choosing him.

I know—that's a strong thing to say. But is there any doubt at this point that the Corporation made a mistake? Regardless of whether you support or oppose Summers, this episode is disastrous for Harvard. Summers is the epicenter of this storm, and the Corporation chose Summers. You can't argue with results: He was the wrong pick. But I doubt they'll ever admit that.

I got into a vigorous discussion last night about the meaning of this vote. My interlocutor said that it reflected an attempt by the faculty to take control of the university in a fundamental way; that this was a blow against not just the president, but the presidency.

I disagree. This vote is not a coup d'etat. In general, the Harvard faculty isn't much interested in the governance of the university. The Harvard faculty would not object to a vigorous presidency. If a vigorous presidency worked to effect the goals of the university and made Harvard look good in the public eye, the faculty would back it.

No, this vote couldn't be more personal. It's not a vote against a strong presidency. It's a vote against Larry Summers.

You have to wonder if Alex Beam's Boston Globe column yesterday morning (see "Bombshell," below) didn't solidify some anti-Summers votes and push a few folks into the anti-Summers column. Beam's reporting on Summers' imperious treatment of the School of Public Health and one of its scientists was the most explicit detailing of Summers' leadership style I've seen outside of, well, Harvard Rules.

Will more such stories start to come out? You know they're out there.

Clearly the depth of anti-Summers feeling was stronger than most observers realized. The fact that only a handful of professors publicly gave voice to that feeling may have created the impression that those who shared the sentiment were a minority of the faculty.

Personally, I'm not surprised by the fact that so many professors lack confidence in Summers. It's consistent with what I heard while reporting on Summers' presidency, and it's reflected in Harvard Rules. It was always clear to me that those who supported Summers' presidency were a minority of the faculty—and truth be told, a smaller minority than those who voted in support of him yesterday. You have to think that a number of those pro-Summers votes were actually votes against the inevitable division that the no-confidence vote would create, rather than explicit displays of support for the president.

But I am surprised that the faculty passed the vote of no-confidence. It's such a dramatic step! If I had had to bet, I would have guessed that, having crept up to the brink of no-confidence, the faculty would pull back. The power of the secret ballot box—it's an amazing thing.

As of yesterday noon, Larry Summers seemed on the road to recovery. The worst was over. He'd survive the two votes at the faculty meeting, the bubble of tension would be burst, and Summers could begin the difficult work of revitalizing his presidency.

After yesterday, as Aimee Mann once sang, everything's different now.

First, Summers lost the no-confidence vote by a tally of 218 to 185. Then he lost the vote on Theda Skocpol's motion by 253-137.

It is safe to say that no one expected this.

In a statement released after the meeting, Summers said that he had tried "to hear all that has been said, to think hard, to learn and to adjust. I will continue to do that. I am committed to doing all I can to restore the sense of trust that is critical to our work together, and to reengage our collective attention with the vital academic issues before us."

It's the right rhetoric. Is it remotely realistic now?

Pale Male and Lola, the hawks of Fifth Avenue, may be expecting. I hope so. It'd be the storybook ending to the saga of the once-evicted birds.

I happened to see Pale Male in Central Park last weekend, near a little marsh not too far from the 81st street entrance on the West Side. I thought he had a little spring in his flight....

The Crimson has this balanced portrait of FAS dean Bill Kirby. One question raised by the piece is how his relationship with Summers affects Kirby's reputation.

It's a question that has broader applicability. Around Harvard, there are any number of men and women who have taken heat for Summers and whose reputation has suffered for it. Bob Rubin comes to mind. Because Rubin swore during the presidential search process that Summers' reputation as a tough guy was over-rated, there are now serious questions on campus about Rubin's judgment and credibility. Is it just coincidence that Rubin hasn't said a public word in recent weeks about his protege?

Steven Hyman is another example. Hyman, who by all accounts is a very decent guy, looks terrible defending Summers in today's Globe.

And then there's poor Jack Reardon, the ubiquitous vice-president of alumni affairs and development. Jack's a lovely guy who is truly devoted to Harvard...and for the last three and a half years, he's been like a punching bag for alums who are pissed off at the president.

And don't forget the departing press secretary, Lucie McNeil, who was, shall we say, not beloved amongst reporters. But what a difficult job she had!

I could go on, but you get the point. This goes to leadership style. A good leader makes the people underneath him look good. Because, after all, he can't expect them to keep taking the hits on his behalf indefinitely.

And from what I hear, the distancing has already begun....

Is it just me, or has the Harvard webpage suddenly become feminist? On today's page are stories about:

1) Harvard women's hockey
2) French defense minister Michèle Alliot-Marie
3) Preventive breast removal for women at high risk of breast cancer
4) The "grim issue of sex trafficking"

Whew! All that estrogen is going to my head. Luckily, there's also a story about the Harvard math department, a woman-free zone. Of 16 senior faculty, all are men.

Today is faculty meeting day. Sara Rimer outlines the issues in her story in today's Times. At the end of her piece, she predicts that the vote of no-confidence won't pass. I would have agreed...until this morning. Now I wonder what effect Alex Beam's piece might have.

For some reason, the Globe doesn't have anything on the faculty meeting in today's paper. Makes sense. To quote the inimitable Spinal Tap, it's not like Boston is a big college town.

I joke, but in fact, the Globe's coverage of the Harvard story has been oddly restrained. It's hard to understand why...but I wonder if it has something to do with the fact that the paper's editorial board has been one of Summers' biggest cheerleaders.

The faculty council of the Harvard School of Public Health has posted a letter to Summers on its website. Key quote: "Our faculty affirms that respect for others both within and outside the university community is essential to open discourse and the pursuit of truth and excellence. We appreciate your recognition that the words and actions of your Administration have not always been consistent with the values that have made Harvard an admired institution worldwide."

Dean Barry Bloom is silent.

In Harvard Rules, I wrote that Summers has systematically weakened the power of the deans at Harvard, in several instances by appointing deans whom he expected to be compliant. Barry Bloom appears to fit this description.

I interviewed Bloom for the book, and thought him a courteous, sincere, and thoughtful man who was passionate about the cause of public health. Sadly, his desire to retain the deanship appears to have superceded the better angels of his nature.

A devastating piece by Alex Beam in today's Globe. Beam reports that Lawrence Summers has systematically tried to undermine the Harvard School of Public Health scientist who is managing the $107 million AIDS grant that school received in 2004. The scientist is a woman, and Summers feels that she's not capable of administering the grant all by herself.

I reported a bit of this story in Harvard Rules, noting that Summers was furious when HSPH put out a press release announcing the grant and failed to mention his name. Summers was so angry that at a subsequent dinner attended by both him and HSPH dean Barry Bloom, the Harvard president asked to be seated somewhere he couldn't see Bloom.

But Beam puts everything that's happened since then together. He writes: "Since then, for almost a year, Summers and his satraps at Massachusetts Hall have been working overtime to undermine the School's relief program and its principal investigator, Dr. Phyllis Kanki." Part of that strategy has, apparently, included a whispering campaign suggesting that Kanki "isn't a real doctor."

This is nasty stuff. But then, this is life at Harvard these days. Before today's faculty meeting, every faculty member should read this story.

This Boston Globe story combines two of my favorite obsessions: Apple Computer and Harvard University. It details the legal fight between Apple and Harvard undergrad Nicholas Ciarelli, founder of an Apple-devotee website called Think Secret. Apple is suing Ciarelli over his publication of material that may or may not constitute trade secrets. Apple has also subpoenaed Ciarelli to try to force him to disclose the names of his sources.

Columnist Hiawatha Bray's conclusion: "Apple decided to tee off on a 19-year-old kid, hoping to make an example of him. It's a bonehead play from a company that's cultivated a warm and friendly image."

I agree. Sites like Ciarelli's are beloved by Apple loyalists like me, and we kept Apple afloat during its lean years. More important, I get nervous when companies use their legions of lawyers to try to control what the press can and can't publish. Just because Ciarelli is 19 and publishes his scoops on the web doesn't mean he isn't a journalist. He is, and this kind of corporate intimidation should make every journalist deeply, deeply anxious.

So far, the court rulings in this case have gone in Apple's favor. That's too bad. But if Apple ultimately wins, the company ought to immediately announce that it was suing to establish the principle involved, and has no plans to seek damages from Ciarelli or to hunt down his sources. It's still a crummy situation, but at least the company would prove its point without further alienating its most loyal customer base.

Former Clintonite Gene Sperling defends his old friend Larry Summers in this column. Sperling denies that Summers is sexist and points to a number of pro-woman policy proposals Summers has supported.

Sperling has a point: Summers has taken concrete steps to implement socially progressive policy measures over the years, and some of those measures have a significantly larger impact on women than on men.

But Sperling's column inadvertently points up why Summers is such a complicated and divisive figure: for every piece of evidence you can marshal suggesting that he believes x, you can find another fact suggesting he believes y. If you look at the number of women he's appointed to the highest levels in his academic administration, or the number of women who have won tenure at Harvard since he's become president, or the way he's talked to certain women at Harvard, you might very well conclude that Summers has a sexism problem.

Summers does contradict himself, and his inconsistency is one reason why people argue about him so heatedly, and for so long. Whatever the issue with Summers, both sides will always have material to back up the way they're already inclined to feel.

The Crimson today has an important story about the pathetic state of the curricular review. The Committee on General Education, probably the heart of the review process, has about finished its report...but those who have seen it say the report is so vague, the committee should start from scratch.

Apparently the committee advocates that Harvard College students be required to take nine courses from three different areas: the sciences, the "study of societies," and "humanities and the arts." Two of those courses should be the new "Harvard College" courses, which are intended to be interdisciplinary, survey courses that teach a specific body of knowledge. (Unlike courses in the current Core curriculum, which are intended to teach "ways of thinking.")

Part of the problem, according to the Crimson, is that no one has bothered to give an example of what a Harvard College course is supposed to be. I suspect that's because the distinction between a Harvard College course and any other course is so vague as to be meaningless. If you actually try to define such a course, the banality of the idea would become embarrassingly obvious.

There's another problem. After two years of work, this is the best that Harvard College can come up with? The plan above sounds like something any professor could sketch on the back of a cocktail napkin in about five minutes time.

Someone named S.N. Fierro sticks up for Dormaid here.

Sorry, but I'm unconvinced.

Maureen Dowd weighs in on the debate over sexism on the op-ed pages here. The money quote: "I have no doubt there are plenty of brilliant women who would bring grace and guts to our nation's op-ed pages, just as, Lawrence Summers notwithstanding, there are plenty of brilliant women out there who are great at math and science. We just need to find and nurture them."

In the past I've written critically about Dowd; I felt that while she criticized much, and often glibly, she stood for little. But she's absolutely right on this issue. It's insane and offensive that of nine regular NYT columnists, only one, Dowd, is a woman.

Dowd seems to be becoming—dare I say it?—a feminist. Good for her. Her recent columns on women-oriented subjects have a depth and humanity that have made her work far more interesting than her facile takedowns of public figures. She's taking a chance with this material, opening herself up. That takes guts. But her writing is much the better for it. Taking a chance to write about something you believe in—this, it seems to me, is the difference between being entertaining and being important.

So occasionally I get sent things...like this inspired piece of satire, in which UC-Berkeley sociologist Nancy Chodorow wonders: What if Larry Summers had mused more on that burning question, Why are there so few Jews in farming? The president's quote comes first...Chodorow's imagined extension folllows.

Jews in Farming?
Lawrence H. Summers
Cambridge, Mass.
January 14, 2005

It is, after all, not the case that the role of women in science is the only example of a group that is significantly underrepresented in an important activity and whose underrepresentation contributes to a shortage of role models for others who are considering being in that group. To take a set of diverse examples, the data will, I am confident, reveal that Catholics are substantially underrepresented in investment banking, which is an enormously high-paying profession in our society; that white men are very substantially underrepresented in the National Basketball Association; and that Jews are very substantially underrepresented in farming and in agriculture. These are all phenomena in which one observes underrepresentation, and I think it's important to try to think systematically and clinically about the reasons for underrepresentation. >>

Why are there so few Jews in farming?
—Nancy J. Chodorow Psychoanalyst; Professor of Sociology Emerita, University of California, Berkeley

I can think of three hypotheses, and I'll give them to you in order of most to least probable. The main reason, I think, is because Jews don't like to get up at 4 am, so they simply select themselves out of jobs, like milking cows, that require such early rising. Secondly, we need to consider biogenetic factors: that Jews may have less innate aptitude than non-Jews for activities like driving tractors or combines, or figuring out how much money you can make on a silo of grain, and whether you should sell it in early or late August, or being able to deliver a calf. Finally, and I think this is the least important of the three possibilities -- though of course I'll be glad to be proven wrong -- there is the possibility that the socialization of Jews has not been in the direction of making them farmers, and possibly there has been discrimination against Jews, when they've tried to own land, or to move into traditional rural Christian communities. But I'd just remind you that I think these last possibilities -- that Jews have been discriminated against in terms of whether they could own land, say in the Ukraine in the 19th century, or here in the U.S., when those few immigrants moved to Minnesota or Upstate New York, or that Jews are socialized to be more interested in urban occupations – those are way down the line in terms of where I'd see the causal probabilities -- I could be wrong here, of course, and I'm just trying to be descriptive, not get into all that judgmental stuff that one gets into when one is looking at questions of inequality. But I’d say, thinking systematically and clinically, that the factors of choice not to have jobs that require such early hours, and innate biological or genetic factors that favor Gentiles over Jews in those aptitudes that make for good farmers -- those seem to me more likely to be first and second as reasons.

The Washington Post's Jonathan Yardley weighs in with his review. . .

As happens so often with this story, Yardley misrepresents what happened with me in the waning months of George magazine. Someday, perhaps, I'll write about this, if only to set the record straight. But right now, I'm deeply bored of the subject. (And I suspect I'm not the only one.) Besides, Yardley's account is so deeply indebted to Nexis, it will likely live on, regardless of anything I write. The power of information technology....

Yardley does recommend that readers who want to delve more deeply into the subject of the commercialization of higher education would do well to read Derek Bok's book, Universities in the Marketplace: The Commercialization of Higher Education, and I couldn't agree more. Bok does an excellent job of exploring the issues in this phenomenon, and I was surprised that his book didn't get more attention when it came out in 2003; it strikes unnervingly close to home (i.e., Harvard) in a number of instances.