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Sunday, June 05, 2005
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THE DIVERSITY EFFECT In an essay about uniformity of thought in academia, Mark Bauerlein cites the “law of group polarization”: That law, as Cass R. Sunstein, a professor of political science and of jurisprudence at the University of Chicago, has described, predicts that when like-minded people deliberate as an organized group, the general opinion shifts toward extreme versions of their common beliefs. Here’s an example of the law of group polarization: In January, Dr. Summers ignited a firestorm when he suggested that "intrinsic aptitude" could be one reason that there are few women in science and engineering. The Faculty of Arts and Sciences in March passed a resolution expressing a lack of confidence in Dr. Summers's leadership. That’s how it plays out in a polarized group. This is how it looks in a more broadly distributed one: A majority of Harvard alumni believe that the university's president, Lawrence H. Summers, has done a good job over all and should not resign, according to a poll conducted for a new independent alumni magazine. Nearly two-thirds of respondents [in a recent poll], or 63 percent, said Dr. Summers should keep his job, and just over one-half had a favorable impression of him and said he was a victim of political correctness. |