Caught by their big trap

http://www.jewishworldreview.com | Two tempests swirling about the academic teapot confirm the wisdom of the Talmud's dictum (Pesachim 99a): "Silence is good for the wise, and even more so for the foolish." A wise man named Lawrence Summers of Harvard and a foolish man named Ward Churchill of the University of Colorado are in danger of losing their jobs for excessive flapping of the lips without prior cerebration. When we say that G-d's greatest gift to Man is the faculty of speech, we don't necessarily mean the speech of faculty.

To their further misfortunes, a light political weekend has created a void which news directors have chosen to fill with these sagas of the (supposedly) sagacious. They get to roll out a favorite media phrasing: "…calls for the ouster…" And college administrators are famously averse to noise. If it's a choice between profs and profits, the top dogs always go for the bottom line. They like to run tight ships, which are famously sensitive to loose lips. So the odds are that Summers does not weather the storm and Churchill downs the bitter cup of hemlock.

As a disinterested party to the proceedings, I find it very interesting. Professor Churchill is taking heat for his written position that the victims of Sept. 11 were a bunch of little Eichmanns, working in their brokerage houses to enslave the world. He has added, in oral presentations, that white men should disguise themselves as yuppies and commit terrorist acts to bring down that bastion of oppression known as Wall Street. Such views, when expressed in this grossly intemperate language, although bringing a certain class of anorexic blondes to mystical rapture, constitute a great boon to recruitment of conservatives on campus. My view is that he should be kept on, but only on condition that he publish and give interviews with great frequency. No need for more choler and ado in Colorado.

The case of Dean Summers calls for a whit of wit, to laugh it off, and a mite of might, to resist the baying wolves. But mistakes were made and lessons should be learned before classes resume and lessons are taught. And from my perch high atop the JWR building, with half my pen tied behind my back just to make it fair, I will tell you the story and how such gaffes can be avoided in future.

Summers, President of Harvard and former Secretary of the Treasury of these United States, was offering some remarks to his colleagues about why it might be that womenfolk are not crowding at the gates of the professoriat in such disciplines as mathematics and science. Apparently, Polly prefers languages to math. Of the three possibilities that he considered, he seemed to be dwelling with too much relish on the ones that posited a lack of aptitude or ambition and less on the big bugaboo of discrimination. To his credit, when advancing the notion that women might be constitutionally less disposed to such pursuits, he noted that he was saying it "to provoke you". In this goal, at least, he was successful.

Are folks more offended by the thought of inequality in equations and a fracture in fractions, or by the absence of obeisance at the shrine of sexism? The question might be said at this point to be er... academic. One way or the other, this former custodian of our national exchequer is in danger of becoming an ex-college president with a checkered past.

In my view, his statement in and of itself is adiaphorous. It neither adds to nor subtracts from the condition of women in academia in any material way. The man simply allowed his garrulity to overcome his gallantry and his loquacity to override his logic. I would hope that cooler heads prevail and he be sentenced only to time served — in the public eye, looking like a prize idiot. If you want to be prolix, you have to take your licks like a pro.

Some may misconstrue the moral of this story, bewailing the "chilling effect" on public speech. But the fact is that having a big mouth was not a career plus at any time in history. Here again, we defer to the Talmud (Berachos 4a): "Always train your tongue to say 'I don't know', otherwise you may make a foolish statement and get caught." It would have been wisest for Summers to say that there is no evidence of discrimination against women, that the statistic is an aberration, and that his institution would continue to make every effort to encourage women both as students and as job applicants.

There is a regrettable tendency of smart people to never admit that they don't know the answer and to offer up ill-conceived answers which create more problems than they solve. They would do well to remember the Yiddish version of that Talmudic idea: ‘Foon a kasha shtarbt mann nisht’ (Having a question is not a fatal condition).

JWR contributor Jay D. Homnick is the author of many books and essays on Jewish political and religious affairs. Comment by clicking here.

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