Comments on: Harvard to Hire Token Women

By: philip m

philip m — Sat, 04 Jun 2005 01:25:27 +0000

A better word would be full transcript, sorry.

By: philip m

philip m — Sat, 04 Jun 2005 01:24:10 +0000

Does anyone know where I can find the full context of this speech? If so, please email me at gtg607a@mail.gatech.edu

By: Mr L

Mr L — Wed, 18 May 2005 18:16:34 +0000

"Jesse is right that one can increase diversity, WITHIN a given institution, without lowering standards." There's another way to do it, one that I've seen the diversitoids use elsewhere: simply don't differentiate between candidates that meet the minimum qualifications. This is how favoring a black student with a 1200 SAT over a jew with a 1440 gets characterized as 'AA for equally qualified candidates', which the public theoretically supports. Since Harvard's standards are likely quite flexible (to accommodate the occassional indep. literary geniuses and wunderkinds), functionally this means that they're going to give a seat to anyone who won't make a complete idiot of themselves in the classroom (or maybe they will anyway; Harvard-caliber students love overwhelmed teachers, because they're easier to pressure into giving high marks).

By: Jack Tanner

Jack Tanner — Wed, 18 May 2005 15:14:06 +0000

I'm not equating Harvard with blackmailers but this is why you don't pay with blackmailers . It only leads to more blackmail.

By: Blind Mind's Eye

Blind Mind's Eye — Wed, 18 May 2005 04:27:52 +0000

The PC gods demand another human sacrifice
Whoever said that feminists give a damn about freedom of speech and science has obviously never actually encountered any. Now that Harvard’s President Summers has been forced to sufficiently genuflect before the altar of political correctness he...

By: PAXALLES

PAXALLES — Wed, 18 May 2005 01:01:13 +0000

Lawrence Summers Real Slap to Women

Lawrence Summers Real Slap to Women

By: Steven L.

Steven L. — Wed, 18 May 2005 00:56:49 +0000

"They should understand the sentiments of NOW and think 101 times before expressing views which hurt feelings of its members."

By: Kent

Kent — Tue, 17 May 2005 21:11:29 +0000

Tokenism isn't the only problem with making an extra effort to attract qualified women. There's the opportunity cost. If it costs twice as much to attract a superb female professor than an equally superb male professor you will end up with admittedly superb female faculty and less than superb male faculty.

By: James Joyner

James Joyner — Tue, 17 May 2005 18:33:39 +0000

Anon: True enough. Sure, Harvard could go out and identify the best female faculty members elsewhere and bring them in, raising the bar. Of course, one could also do that without respect to gender, simply targetting great scholars.

The problem with the former approach vice the latter is that it smacks of tokenism. Any woman scholar--including those who would have been hired under the current process--will be viewed as a "diversity" hire rather than simply a brilliant scholar.

By: Anon

Anon — Tue, 17 May 2005 18:21:23 +0000

Jesse is right that one can increase diversity, WITHIN a given institution, without lowering standards. Simply offer gobs of money to the finite pool of qualified women. Of course, at the level that Harvard is dealing with, it's mostly a zero-sum game, so this does nothing to improve the overall degree of diversity.

I do believe that government action can improve diversity, but the effort/money must be directed at the primary and secondary school levels, where the effect can be much more significant.

By: Kent

Kent — Tue, 17 May 2005 17:17:20 +0000

Harvard vies with a handful of schools for title of America's best university.

[phony French accent]
Not any more.
[/phony French accent]

By: Jon Cohen

Jon Cohen — Tue, 17 May 2005 15:48:35 +0000

Why not just put up a sign saying "white boys need not apply" and give the $50,000,000 to me?

By: Pandagon

Pandagon — Tue, 17 May 2005 15:46:46 +0000

Wimmin's Uppity
James Joyner: Since Harvard has hired every woman and every minority ever possibly qualified for any position at Harvard, there is nothing they can do to find new, qualified candidates. Therefore, any attempt to find or promote more female academics...

By: bryan

bryan — Tue, 17 May 2005 15:41:11 +0000

Maybe they'll hire more conservatives for some intellectual diversity.

And didn't you know there'd be an additional vice chancellor in that package somewhere?

By: Teresa (the other one on hiatus)

Teresa (the other one on hiatus) — Tue, 17 May 2005 15:08:27 +0000

Quote: "Task force recommendations included appointing a senior vice provost for diversity and faculty development, improved recruitment and mentoring of junior faculty members. "They also propose a series of reforms and enhancements to the way women pursuing science and engineering are treated at every point along the 'pipeline,' from undergraduates, to graduate students, to post-doctoral fellows, to the faculty ranks," Maybe you need to reread? Not just throw money at a problem to develope resources, but read the words "diverity...improved recruitment...reforms and enhancements to the way women...are treated at every point along the 'pipeline'... Read "affirmative action"...and we all know how well affirmative action has worked against the races in the end game. So now they want to use it with the sexes? No thankyou, I'll be hired or fired on my own merits if you don't mind.