au contraire!

i believe in free inquiry, but i don't believe in unqualified people making inquiries at improper times and improper venues. yes, summers is the president of harvard, but that does not make him an expert in everything. he is an economist, not a geneticist and not a social scientist.

for example, i should never be expected to make commentary in a professional gathering about derrida, because i have never come closer than ten feet at the most to anything he wrote; i only know that he is a philosopher that passed away recently and has made some people froth at the mouth, people who feel that his ideas were removed from reality. i leave professional commentary made in public -- or even in closed conferences populated by professionals -- about derrida to experts.

likewise, i feel that summers was unprofessional, and i cannot cheer for someone that has made off-the-cuff remarks that were not thought out and laud it as a display of "academic freedom." to do so is simply ludicrous. if a geneticist were to have made those remarks and had studies to back them up, then all hail the geneticist! i don't shy away from provocative or controversial ideas as long as they are conveyed by a reliable and responsible source. however, if i came into a conference of say... engineers and said, "gee, maybe derrida shouldn't be taught in schools. his philosophy sucks. what do you guys think?" it would be out of place, unnecessary, uneducated and unprofessional. summers should have known better.

i was asked by time magazine for a quote on the subject, and since it wasn't used (i think they wanted something more "feminist" or something, but hey, what can ya do...), i guess my thoughts are above.