West: Summers=Sharon

Doug Henwood dhenwood at panix.com
Wed Apr 17 14:17:10 PDT 2002


Michael Perelman wrote:


>West's words might not have been chosen well, but it sounds unseemly for a
>professor to be rebuked for supporting the wrong candidate in a political
>race.
>
>Maybe he could package his rap CD with Ashcroft's singing.

I haven't heard West's CD. Adolph Reed says it's awful, but he's probably not the most objective of sources. Anyone else heard it?


>What might be more troubling is that Harvard might not want to spend big
>$$$ for Black Studies and the like when the same money could be used to
>hire a big biotech person who could bring in even more money for the U.
>It is the age of entrepreneurship.

But wouldn't the same logic apply to Princeton? I don't quite get why Princeton is so eager to hire away the stars of Harvard's A-A department for precisely those reasons. I'm sure most alums (is there a Princetonian equivalent of the Yale term "Old Blues"?) wouldn't be inspired to open their checkbooks by West's hiring. Is it academic prestige? Some notion of affirmative action for the University of Virginia of the North? Any ideas?

Doug



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