哈佛大学全体教员投票责难校长-英语课

时间：2019-01-03 作者：英语课 分类：VOA2005（上）--文化教育动态

英语课

Harvard Faculty 1 Votes to Censure 2 University President

哈佛大学全体教员投票责难校长

Several months since Harvard University President Lawrence Summers made a remark he would deeply regret.

At a meeting of the National Bureau of Economic Research, Mr. Summers suggested that one reason women have fewer top jobs in the sciences might be due to in his words "it was the intrinsic difference between men and women."

That comment set off a storm of protest at Harvard -- and the national news media ，in which a majority opposed Mr. Summers' continued leadership of the nation's oldest educational institution.

Mr. Summers has repeatedly apologized for his remark. In a letter to the faculty following the incident, he wrote that the comment was speculative 3 and perhaps all wrong. But that did not stop the Harvard University Faculty of Arts and Sciences -- the largest faculty group on campus -- from pressing ahead with its vote of no confidence. The Tuesday vote was the first of its kind in Harvard's 369-year history.

The resolution simply read, "The faculty lacks confidence with the leadership of Lawrence H. Summers."

Following the 218-185 vote, Mr. Summers addressed a group of protesters at Harvard.

Mr. Summers: As I said to the faculty, I have tried these last couple of months to listen carefully to all that has been said, to learn from it and to move forward. And that is what I will do.

Mr. Summer's comments on women have sharply divided the faculty. Literature professor Ruth Wisse says academic freedom of speech is on trial. She says Mr. Summers has the right -- like any citizen -- to express his opinions.

Ruth Wisse: Astonishingly, the President of the University feels inhibited 5 now from saying anything about one of the issues which is in fact one of the most important issues that we face, and that is, what is going to be the role of women.

Harvard history professor Everett Mendelson says the debate over Mr. Summers' remarks is not a referendum on academic freedom. Rather it reflects the faculty's problems with Mr. Summers - formerly 6 Secretary Treasury 7 under Bill Clinton -- ever since Mr. Summers took the job at Harvard three years ago.

Everett Mendelson: At the time, coming out of government, he had a rough time in Washington. We had been warned. As one columnist 8 put it in the Chronicle of Higher Education…'Harvard was in for a rough ride.' What we have watched over these three and one half years are a series of mistakes in governance, in management, not only style, but management competence 9.

Mr. Mendelson said that common culminated 10 with the remark in January about women.

Mr. Mendelson: I am saying that President Summers raised a storm because he addressed an issue in a careless and unknowledgeable way. Let's be very frank. For the past three years during his presidency 11, the percentage of women receiving tenure 12 at Harvard across the board has declined.

The vote against Mr. Summers -- while symbolic 13 -- carries no power. The decision to fire Mr. Summers would have to come from Harvard's corporate 14 board, which has issued a press release saying that it fully 4 supports the University president.