The University of California-Davis hhas rescinded a speaking invitation to Larry Summers.
After a group of UC Davis women faculty began circulating a petition, UC regents rescinded an invitation to Larry Summers, the controversial former president of Harvard University, to speak at a board dinner Wednesday night in Sacramento. The dinner comes during the regents' meeting at UCD next week.
...“The regents represent the leadership and public face of the University of California,” the petition states. “Inviting a keynote speaker who has come to symbolize gender and racial prejudice in academia conveys the wrong message to the university community and to the people of California. It is our fervent hope that the regents will rescind this invitation and seek advice elsewhere.”
As some of you know, I have written critically of Summers in the past, but this is ridiculous, the height of political correctness. The shame of it is not just that the UC system regents have caved on an important principle (free speech), but also that other universities might, in the future, simply choose not to invite Summers and other controversial speakers, lest the PC police get up in arms....
...and the funny thing that Summers' opponents don't seem to realize is that there's no surer, faster way to turn him into a martyr.
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