Talk:Lawrence Summers

Derek Bok accession

Summers is still the President of Harvard University, and will remain so until July 1. I don't know who changed the succession box, but please don't do it again until Summers actually leaves office.

Personal attack

I removed this:

In January 2005, Summers gave a speech at an NBER conference which explained the reasons that tenure offers to females at Harvard have been dropping steadily under his administration. It appears that Summers is a misogynist who goes so far as to use anecdotes about his own daughter to denigrate the potential of women.

I consider this to be entirely POV. Feel free to describe the issue, but an introduction followed by a conclusion, with no evidence, is not what Wikipedia needs. — PhilHibbs | talk 16:19, 18 Jan 2005 (UTC)

More on 2005 talk

I question whether this news blurb about the talk in 2005 deserves coverage in an encyclopedia. It was a few comments at a closed conference attended by a small collection of scholars. The NYTimes article mentions that no transcripts were recorded because the conference was intended to be off the record so that people could say controversial things without being misunderstood. Consequently, the public only has some idea of what he actually said, and very little idea of the context. I move that the paragraph and external link be removed. MOE37x3 17:23, 19 Jan 2005 (UTC)

It was very widely reported (just check http://news.google.com/ ) and therefore noteworthy in the context of an article about the man. The fact of being off-the-record comments widely publicized or taken out of context is not relevant; there have been many such cases in history that have become newsworthy. It deserves a single, balanced paragraph. -- Curps 17:52, 19 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Not everything that is very widely reported for a day belongs in an encyclopedia entry about a person's life. This is something that would probably not even make it into a biography of the man, much less an encyclopedia entry. I think that this will only be "newsworthy" in an encyclopedic sense if it has some impact beyond a bunch of people complaining about it and a bunch of newspapers reporting about it for a day. MOE37x3 21:04, 19 Jan 2005 (UTC)

On the contrary, any biography would almost certainly mention it. The remarks put him at odds with some of his own university professors, and any biography chapter on his time as Harvard president could hardly avoid mentioning it. He has a reputation for speaking frankly and boldly and risking misinterpretation on occasion (eg, the Summers memo), and for not shying away from confrontation (Cornel West). Any biography would explore this side of his personality and analyze the episodes involved.

You seem to be arguing that people made too much of the remark and it wasn't really a big deal. I tend to agree that it shouldn't have been a big deal, except people did make a big deal out of it and it thereby became noteworthy. Often things like this take on a life of their own. Again, it deserved a brief, balanced mention. -- Curps 21:48, 19 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Pinker

Huangdi: Your one-word justification for removing Pinker's strong defense of Summers, "mischaracterized" is cryptic and unhelpful. Can you explain why this deserves to be removed? MOE37x3 15:19, 1 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I reinserted a copyedited version pending a real reason for its removal. jdb ❋ (talk) 19:19, 1 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Controversies

I realize that Summers is a controversial figure but I find it incongruous that an encyclopedia biography should devote almost twice as much space to "controversies" as it does to the rest of his life and career. The body of the article is virtually a stub. Shouldn't his life be expanded and, most particularly, the controversy section edited down? I'm not suggesting deleting material, just editing it. I don't want to do this without some comment. WBcoleman 02:25, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

I agree. I work in economic's research in Summers' field and would be happy to add a piece to the article describing some of his contributions to economics (Summers is a brilliant economist). I would like some positive feedback to this idea before going to the trouble. - Graham Stull, www.grahamstull.com

Please tell us what his notable work is. You don't hear much about it in the economics journals these days. It's not that brilliant. You should engage in more objective reporting.

Please do! - Fluxdrip, 23 March 2006

As the majority of Harvard students and proffessors outside of the Arts and Scince school favored Summers should that be given equal weight. Also there is no mention that cornell West was criticized for not serving his students and race had nothing to do with it.Tannim 20:27, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

Party Affiliation

Larry Summers has worked in both the Clinton and Reagan administrations. Does anyone know what his official party affiliation is? 152.17.125.18 18:46, 22 February 2006 (UTC) A Democrat - Matthew238 04:09, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

Religious affiliation

Is he a jew (since his uncle apparently is)? -- 129.13.186.1 23:19, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

"Race Card"?

The article states: "In 2002, Summers controversially used the race card, stating that a campaign by Harvard and MIT faculty to have their universities divest from companies with Israeli holdings was part of a larger trend among left-leaning academics that is 'anti-Semitic in effect, if not in intent.'" How is this "[using] the race card"? Are Jews a distinct race? Can he not critique such a policy without concern as to race? It makes no sense.

Differences Between Males and Females Section

I reverted the removal of the item below from this article. In my mind, this is useful information because it is the sort of information that is good to know in weighing whether Summer's comments can be faily characterized as a lack of support of women's education. Of course, this doesn't provide a blanket excuse for any negative comments he might make about women.

"On the other hand, Summers, when he was Chief Economist of the World Bank, famously promoted the idea that investing in a woman's education was the "single most efficient investment that the Bank can make." Consequently, the World Bank invested millions of dollars in the 1990's on improving women's education in the world. This has, arguably, contributed a great deal to narrowing the gender education gap around the world." Antonrojo 19:11, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

I reverted the final sentence of this paragraph: "This has, arguably, contributed a great deal to narrowing the gender education gap around the world." This is really POV, in that it is pure speculation and not substantiated by any evidence Ribbit 16:22, 8 March 2006 (UTC)Ribbit

World Bank Memo

The section on the world bank memo was long and convoluted, and cited very few sources. There's another article on the memo (though whether there should be is another debate entirely), so I pointed the discussion in that direction. I then removed the text from the memo, which I don't think belongs on this page (and might not belong in Wikipedia at all), cleaned up some of the prose, and added references to a bunch of the quotes in the section.

When searching for a source for the controversy surrounding the memo, the best I could do was to find recent newspaper articles making reference to it. Since it took place in 1991, it's not too surprising that much of the discussion isn't online; However I think the articles do a good job of describing what took place. Still, 'primary sources' would make a nice addition. - Fluxdrip 23 March, 2006

I think a short writeup of the memo (excerpt) is good; until I just now read Summers memo, I had no idea that it was just a part of a longer memo with a very different point.

Being in its own short article is probably right; the brief summary here hits the point and counterpoint, and is good. - Greg Price 20:52, 23 March 2006 (UTC)

"Differences between males and females" -> Sex and intelligence#Controversy

I cut down the section on Summers' women-in-science controversy to a very terse summary and a {{main}} link to the appropriate section of Sex and intelligence. The latter has all the content of the old section here (if I do say so myself -- I wrote its present version =) ) and seems the right place for it.

Meanwhile I trimmed references that have expired with age, made sure the important ones were kept in the new version, and removed them from here.

If there's a template better than {{main}} for linking to a section, please apply it.

Greg Price 00:18, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

Nobel laureates in economics?

It's doubtful that Summers will ever get a Noble prize. This is just propaganda from Harvard sources. His father, Robert Summers, has done more for economics with his development of the Penn World Tables. "Summers is ... the nephew of two Nobel laureates in economics" -- From Bank of Sweden Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel: "Although it was not one of the awards established in the will of Alfred Nobel, the economics laureates receive their diploma and gold medal from the Swedish monarch at the same December 10 ceremony in Stockholm as the Nobel laureates in physics, chemistry, physiology or medicine, and literature. ... The prestige of the prize derives in part from its association with the awards created by Alfred Nobel's will, an association which has often been a source of controversy. The prize is commonly referred to as the Nobel Prize in Economics or, more correctly, as the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics." -- (a) Since this prize is not actually "a Nobel Prize", do we need to clarify the wording in the article? And (b) perhaps even more importantly, is there even any point in bothering to include in this article information on whose nephew Summers is? We don't seem to do this in other biographical articles. -- 201.78.233.162 13:16, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

No quotes from his speech?

It's hard to understand what the "women-in-academia" controversy was about without actually citing...anything. In fact, how is this allowed in wikipedia at all?

The speech was made to an audience of scientists at a private conference. It was neither recorded nor transcribed, and there were no journalists present. Further, Summers was not reading from a script but was instead using notes he had prepared. There is thus no source from which anyone can find direct quotes.

The speech is an appropriate topic for this article. If direct quotes were available it would be prudent to include them, but the unavailability of one type of evidence does not make the speech any less worthy of inclusion in the article. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 4.232.225.147 (talk) 01:13, 27 February 2007 (UTC).

Reinstatement a prank

Several sources, including the Harvard Crimson, have stated that the email announcing that Summers would be the next President was a prank by the Harvard Lampoon. Considering the lack of press coverage and the suspect phrasing of the email, that's pretty much clear by now. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 140.247.42.50 (talk) 01:09, 4 February 2007 (UTC).