Noble Lies: At Harvard, affirmative action takes its toll

Comment from a Harvard student who does not know the difference between "uninterested" and "disinterested". What he/she writes is sensible but he/she has been betrayed by today's education system.

Whatever the benefits of affirmative action, one undeniable downside is the element of disrespect it introduces onto our campus. This week's appointment of Professor of the History of Science and of African and African American Studies Evelynn M. Hammonds as Dean of Harvard College was greeted mostly with disinterest; students tend to ignore the vicissitudes of administrative hiring.

But on one Harvard mailing list to which I subscribe, an impassioned 28-message e-brawl broke out. The subject was the relevance of the most visible attributes of our new dean-her race and gender-to her appointment. "Who.is Evelyn Hammonds?" the provocative e-mail began, "I've never seen her even mentioned in connection with undergraduate affairs, and it seems.crazy that they passed over people like [Harvard College Professor] Jay [M.] Harris to choose her." This was followed by a coda intended to provoke: "Wait, hold the phone, she's black? And a woman? Oh, nevermind then."

A reply arrived within six minutes. "Right, you know nothing about her, ergo it's affirmative action. Why don't you try engaging on substance instead of crass identity politics?" A second respondent was simply incredulous: "Did that implication really just go over the list? Really?"

One is not supposed to speak of such things; it has been considered impolite, even wicked, to register doubts as to a candidate's viability beyond meeting arbitrary demographic demands. But precedent suggests they are not unreasonable. An Oct. 14, 2002 New Yorker article quoted the former president of Stanford as saying of the decision to hire former provost Condoleezza Rice that, "it would be disingenuous for me to say that the fact that she was a woman, the fact that she was black.weren't in my mind. They were." It took some honesty and candor to say that, just as it did to call attention to the mechanics of identity politics at work at Harvard (though, to any astute observer of university politics, their influence is sort of obvious).

Yet the university is terrified of any suggestion of race- or sex-based biases. The administration immediately distanced itself from this association, and their dread was conspicuous. "Evelynn is my choice as the College dean because, first and foremost, she's the best person for the job," said Dean of the Faculty Michael D. Smith, "independent of the fact that she's a woman and an African-American."

Why did Dean Smith have to add such a humiliating and terrible caveat? Dean Hammonds, after all, is a respected scholar within both her departments and was well-regarded in her previous administrative position. But he knows what other people are thinking (and saying, however privately). To defend, after all, is to deflect. He must deny the weight of affirmative action on Hammonds' hiring precisely because its significant role in decision-making at Harvard is an open secret.

In fact, Hammonds herself deserves some credit for this disrespect. It was in the mandate of her previous job to ensure "greater diversity in faculty ranks." The irony sings with starkness: Harvard's coordinator of affirmative action now finds herself demeaned by it, and the implications it carries. The misfortune lies is this: no matter how talented and capable an administrator Hammonds is, doubts over the initial appointment will remain-even if only one or two provocateurs dare to voice them aloud.

In this sly, wafting doubt is the greatest injury done. When perfectly able minorities must constantly disprove a default presumption of being unqualified for their jobs-that is a problem. When, to remedy racial and gender barriers in society, we conjure up new negative associations-that is a problem. These are affirmative action's damning downsides. We usually weigh these against other ends, like improving social mobility or exposing the homogeneous majority to diversity. But at some point the program's negatives will counterbalance the positives.

Meanwhile, for some, a new Dean's tenure begins in a haze of doubt and disrespect.

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Changes to rules governing homeschooling irk advocates

The D.C. State Superintendent's Office is proposing regulations for homeschoolers that are among the strictest in the country and, in the view of the homeschooling community, completely unconstitutional. For years, parents in the District have been largely free to educate their children as they wished. But that could drastically change with the new rules, which authorize public school officials to make home visits several times a year, mandate the subject areas families cover and require parents to submit evidence that their children have been immunized.

The issue became a pressing priority after a high-profile January case in which Banita Jacks was charged with killing her children who had been pulled out of the public school system. Michael Donnelly, staff attorney for the Home School Legal Defense Association, said he was shocked to see the rigid guidelines that will be vetted during a public hearing tonight. Particularly egregious is the notion that parents have to let school representatives into their residence to demonstrate their teachings, he said. "Unless you agree to let them in, you can't privately instruct your own kids, and that's wrong," he said. Donnelly said he's never had to go to court over homeschooling regulations. But if the proposal makes it past the State Board of Education, he said he would file suit.

John Stokes, spokesman for the State Superintendent's Office, emphasized the regulation won't be finalized for another month while the public weighs in. He declined to comment on the specific concerns raised by homeschooling advocates. What's being proposed is patterned on Maryland's homeschooling law, only with tougher rules, experts said. For instance, the regulations would give education administrators the authority to order children back into the public system if they were unsatisfied with their parents' competency or to start a remediation plan if they don't agree with the students' work portfolio.

Both steps are unusual in other jurisdictions. A D.C. father who homeschools his 5-year-old daughter and spoke on the condition of anonymity, said he felt unfairly targeted. "Nationally homeschoolers are performing better than kids in school," he said. "This is just overstepping."

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Nutty Jewish studies professor

Officials at a Columbia University department established in 2005 to balance an anti-Israel tilt in Middle Eastern scholarship at the university have appointed as its director a professor who signed a letter labeling Israeli policy "the occupation and oppression of another people." Supporters of Israel on campus say they are disappointed about the appointment of Yinon Cohen as the new director of the Institute for Israel and Jewish Studies, in light of his previous statements.

A Columbia business professor and co-chair of Scholars for Peace in the Middle East, Awi Federgruen, called the administration's decision "deeply, deeply troubling." "It's clear that he represents a very extreme segment of the political spectrum in Israel," Mr. Federgruen said. "I also think he is in fact distorting in a major way the history of the region and the history of the country."

In May 2002, Mr. Cohen, then a professor at Tel Aviv University, endorsed a statement that supported Israelis who refused to serve in military operations in Gaza and the West Bank during a violent uprising by Palestinian Arabs. The letter was signed by 358 faculty members at 21 Israeli colleges and universities. "Such service too often involves carrying out orders that have no place in a democratic society founded on the sanctity of human life," the letter read. "For thirty five years an entire people, some three and a half million in number, have been held without basic human rights. The occupation and oppression of another people have brought the State of Israel to where it is today."

A Columbia professor of epidemiology and vice president of Scholars for Peace in the Middle East, Judith Jacobson, called Mr. Cohen's letter "very insulting." "I am offended because in May 2002, the Intifada was going on actively, and people within Israel, not beyond the green line, were being killed. The idea of the refusal to serve as soldiers in the occupied territories was so harmful to Israel. I'm offended," she said.

Mr. Cohen began his academic career at Tel Aviv University after receiving his Ph.D. in sociology from the State University of New York at Stony Brook. He joined Columbia's sociology department last year, and his recent research projects have explored income inequality in Israel, the transformation of the Israeli labor system, and sociological patterns of immigrants in Israel, Germany, and America. At Columbia, Mr. Cohen teaches a graduate course on Israeli society.

Students on campus are reacting to the news of Mr. Cohen's appointment, which was reported earlier by Martin Kramer's Web log, Sandstorm, with respect for academic freedom. "Professor Cohen voiced his criticism of Israel in a reasoned and responsible manner," a spokesman for a pro-Israel student group, LionPAC, Jacob Shapiro, said in an e-mail message. "Regardless of his personal beliefs, we hope that Professor Cohen will continue to demonstrate his commitment to meaningful discussion about Israel and its role in the international community."

The New York Sun previously reported that the Columbia search committee responsible for hiring a director included one of academia's most outspoken critics of Israel, Rashid Khalidi, as well as a professor who supported an anti-Israel divestment campaign on campus, Lila Abu-Lughod. The Institute for Israel and Jewish Studies was created with $3 million from donors that included the commissioner of the NBA, David Stern, and financiers Richard Witten, Philip Milstein, and Mark Kingdon.

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