UC administrators mustn't buckle to ideology

last updated: September 21, 2007 04:50:22 AM

Universities are supposed to exist as a forum for inquiry and wide-open debate. Diverse viewpoints and dissent are expressed and challenged -- not censored. Two events in one week undermine that tradition in the University of California system.

When a group of UC Davis faculty circulated a petition, the Board of Regents rescinded a speaking invitation to Lawrence Summers, former president of Harvard University and treasury secretary under President Clinton. His sin? Speaking about women in science and engineering at a 2005 conference, Summers likened the situation to white men being underrepresented in the National Basketball Association. He suggested that women are less likely to choose 80- hour-a-week jobs and there is "different availability of aptitude at the high end." He hoped he had provoked "thought on this question" and "marshalling of evidence to contradict" his statement. Instead, many just want to silence him.

That is shameful enough. Worse is the saga of a new public school of law, scheduled to open in 2009. UC Irvine sought a premier dean, so on Sept. 4 it hired Erwin Chemerinsky, a renowned constitutional scholar who taught 21 years at the University of Southern California Law School before moving to Duke. Chemerinsky is active, writing articles, testifying before Congress, arguing cases before the U.S. Supreme Court, serving on commissions.

The school's selection of anything but a low- profile dean had consequences. Faced with an anti-Chemerinsky campaign by two dozen people, UC Irvine withdrew the offer on Sept. 11. Legal scholars protested, and there was a widespread outcry about UC Irvine Chancellor Michael Drake's decision. This week, Drake said Chemerinsky would get the job, and Thursday the UC regents approved his salary.

Now the board chairman should rectify that poor decision and invite Summers to speak at a future meeting of the regents.

Small but vocal minorities should not be allowed to halt the free trade of ideas that is so critical to higher education.