Summers on absurdity in academe

Following the end of Clinton’s term, Larry Summers served as the 27th President of Harvard University from 2001 to 2006. In a 2005 speech he suggested that the under-representation of women in science and engineering could be due to a “different availability of aptitude at the high end,” and less to patterns of discrimination and socialization. That ended his Harvard time although there were other conflicts. In 2016 he was interviewed by Bill Kristol.

"There is a great deal of absurd political correctness. Now, I’m somebody who believes very strongly in diversity, who resists racism in all of its many incarnations, who thinks that there is a great deal that’s unjust in American society that needs to be combated, but it seems to be that there is a kind of creeping totalitarianism in terms of what kind of ideas are acceptable and are debatable on college campuses." Larry Summers 2016

http://www.thecrimson.com/article/2016/1/21/summers-race-interview/

http://conversationswithbillkristol.org/transcript/larry-summers-ii-transcript/

“Summers rejoined public service during the Obama administration, serving as the Director of the White House United States National Economic Council for President Barack Obama from January 2009 until November 2010, where he emerged as a key economic decision-maker in the Obama administration’s response to the Great Recession. After his departure from the NEC in December 2010, Summers has worked in the private sector and as a columnist in major newspapers. “

http://www.thoughtleaders.world/en/leader/lawrence-summers/

There’s really nothing startling about his comments on political correctness—conservatives have been seeing this totalitarianism for years, but wealthy, privileged liberals don’t seem to get it until it is turned on them, sort of like the show trials of the Soviet Union in the 1930s when the loyal party members were purged.