Arvada sending out wrong sign

By David Harsanyi
Denver Post Columnist
DenverPost.com

Since when did selling a battered pickup become a battle over the First Amendment?

Well, around the time Arvada’s Tom Wambolt decided to unload his son’s 1966 Ford truck - which, if you’re wondering, “is in good shape, though it needs a little work.”

Wambolt decided, as is American tradition, to place a “for sale” sign in the truck window. But these days, there is another American tradition: Adults must ask the government for permission.

Dutifully, Wambolt called Arvada City Hall. They directed him to the planning department. (more…)

Lawrence Summers wants the entire world to know that women at Harvard are weak. They need to be coddled. They can’t stand on their own two feet.

That’s the message sent by the Harvard president with his recent proclamation that his university will devote $50 million over 10 years to addressing perceived barriers to success facing women in the sciences.

The announcement comes five months after Summers sparked outrage at an academic conference for discussing a hypothesis that women and men have innate differences when it comes to their scientific abilities and interests. One female professor, MIT’s Nancy Hopkins, stormed out in a fitful temper tantrum after hearing Summers’ comments, unaware that her behavior only furthered any thesis suggesting that women might just be a little more emotional than men.

The feminist establishment has long been torn about a single question: are men and women the same or are they different? This debate, held in introductory women’s studies courses across America, is apparently only to occur amongst women. When Summers’ entered the discussion, the feminist establishment presented a united front against his free speech.

To calm concerns about sexism, Harvard did what any self-hating elite academic institution would do in 2005. It convened two tasks forces to author reports on the status of women. When the reports were released this month, it came as no surprise that they attacked the university’s science departments for not being kinder and gentler to female students and faculty.

“Unfortunately, in some departments, women graduate students and postdoctoral fellows report hearing disrespectful criticisms of their abilities from male colleagues and a lack of a supportive environment,” reported the Task Force on Women in Science and Engineering. “Although some female students and postdoctoral fellows of all disciplines face these problems, the problem is especially acute in certain departments, where women are rare, isolated, and sometimes poorly supported.”

As part of Harvard’s $50 million commitment, Summers announced that the university will accept the report’s recommendations to establish formal mentoring and advising programs geared toward female students interested in the sciences.

And who suggested that men and women might have different needs?

Harvard, according to the reports, regularly perpetuates an unequal playing field because of subtle or unintentional discrimination. “Female undergraduate students continue to report and express concerns about gender bias of teaching fellows in science courses,” noted one of the reports. “Although the bias is described as subtle, and almost always unintended, it decreases confidence and discourages women students from pursuing more advanced study in science.”

For this, all doctoral students in the sciences will be forced to take a training course “that includes a component of gender bias.” The University will also form a new administrative position, the senior vice provost for diversity and faculty development, to oversee Harvard’s commitment to 40 new faculty positions targeted toward women and minorities.

In the meantime, administrators will take part in a summer retreat where they will learn just exactly how the feminists think they should act toward women. Rule number one: only women are allowed to criticize women.

While Harvard now pats itself on the back for its new-found commitment to social engineering, just imagine what $50 million could buy in real scientific research to cure diseases. Or better yet, think about the number of scholarships $50 million could buy for poor kids for whom Harvard today is just a far-fetched dream.

Feminists at Harvard complain about “intimidation” and “bullying,” but if Summers’ comments were false, shouldn’t women be able to stand up for themselves? Instead they rely on an institutional structure perpetuated by men to feel better about themselves. Like school-aged children, they can’t fight back on the black top, but instead tattle to the teacher’s aide.

The joke is on the feminists. Harvard bought their silence for $50 million. It’s just too bad the money couldn’t go toward helping women and men who could really use it - those who will never see the inside of Harvard’s Ivy League gates.

This editorial originally appeared in the Colorado Daily on May 26, 2005.

Here’s an idea for a new class sure to take America’s campuses by storm. The title: “Ward Churchill: A Capitalist’s Blueprint for Succeeding in America.”
By now, everyone from Berkeley to Boston has heard the story of Boulder’s infamous America-hating professor. And while the media storm surrounding him has faded—at least for now—his ongoing story presents a valuable case study in basic economics for socialists and free-marketers alike.

Today, Churchill’s books are required reading at more than 100 universities. Since his January rise-to-fame, when the nation first learned of his essay where he compared innocent 9-11 victims to Nazis, his invitations to speak around the country have tripled, giving him the ability to charge thousands a pop plus expenses every time he steps behind his beloved microphone.

Churchill’s supporters would say he needs to cash in on his celebrity now, because the current investigation into his plagiarism could end his academic career. But a closer look shows that despite his tireless rantings against capitalism, the professor had a strong grasp of “supply and demand” even before his notoriety slipped beyond Boulder’s ivory tower.

In an effort to better understand this man, I traveled to the lion’s den of the left, the Left Hand Book Collective, located on Boulder’s Pearl Street Mall, one of the most expensive and elite retail locations in America. The store is a celebrated 25-year-old book co-op run by an all-volunteer staff; its cash register receipts proclaim—the epic symbol of commerce and capitalism— without irony that “Capitalism Kills!”

On its website, the co-op describes its mission as providing “access to alternative viewpoints and difficult-to-obtain sources of information.” Such viewpoints include Churchill’s, and students and supporters can purchase books there to fulfill Churchill’s course reading lists.

Not surprisingly, many of the texts required or suggested for Churchill’s courses were written by the professor himself. For a semester-long class dedicated to ranting against the FBI, the reading list includes Churchill’s “Agents of Repression: The FBI’s Secret Wars Against the Black Panther Party and the American Indian Movement,” as well as “Cointelpro Papers: Documents from the FBI’s Secret Wars Against Domestic Dissent,” co-authored by Churchill and Jim Vander Wall.

The paperback books are offered (dare we say “for sale”?) by Left Hand at almost $20 each, leading one to wonder why Churchill doesn’t offer the books to the co-op at cost, allowing its volunteers to lower the purchase price for customers. Perhaps in the future he can self-publish, circumventing our capitalist publishing system, which would allow him to minimize profits while passing savings on to those who buy his books.

Certainly, if Churchill could spare a few bucks for this beloved co-op, its organizers could sleep better at night. “I would like the financial worry to go away,” dedicated volunteer Kathy Partridge says on Left Hand’s Internet site. “Really that would only take two or three more sales a day. If just two or three more people came in and bought a book we would be in the black.”

Or maybe Ward Churchill could just give a few of his books away for free every day. It would certainly mean less to him than to the volunteers who tirelessly parade his book around as part of his cause. An act of philanthropy would allow Left Hand to better compete with massive, corporate online retailers like Amazon, who offer the same books for at little as $6.

But Ward Churchill is a capitalist, a moneychanger, and a technocrat. He sees a buck and he takes it. He is living the American dream; he created a product and is now exploiting it in the free marketplace. Such successful innovation should be examined as part of a larger study on capitalism—a system Churchill mocks.

On second thought, perhaps Churchill should hold on to his money. After all, therapy isn’t cheap and it could take years on the couch for him to effectively rationalize his love affair with capitalism. Perhaps it is a course subject better saved for another semester. He will need to write a book about it first.

This editorial originally appeared in The Colorado Daily on May 18, 2005.