The Lawrence “Summer’s of Discontent”

William Shakespeare’s Richard III opens with the memorable lines, “Now is the winter of our discontent made glorious summer by this sun of York and all the clouds that lowered upon our house in the deep bosom of the ocean buried.”

However, when it comes to Lawrence Summer’s, Harvard University president, there is no “sun of York,” only the “summer’s” of rising discontent. But wait, is it possible that he may actually be correct?

The firestorm Summer’s has started simply by expressing his Freedom of Speech in an academic setting that is supposed to be about the free flow of ideas and alternative issue debate. For that his job is threatened by the very people who hide behind freedom of speech in academia. Imagine an actual debate on whether “the sexes are equal enough in their intellectual abilities that any biological difference between them is vastly outweighed by social pressures and discrimination.” Or “on the other side are those who believe that biological differences between men and women really can account for at least some of the underrepresentation of women in engineering and some fields of science.”

It would appear that this is entirely what issue debate should be about, not closed minded thinking that something could never be true just because it does not fit one’s agenda. If Liberals academics are doing this to one of their own and he is the President of Harvard, what are they doing to our children in these colleges?