You mean the teeth are real? I thought that Registered had fixed yet another picture!
Posted on 04/25/2002 4:08:08 PM PDT by beckett
Cornel West Scams Princeton
It's lucky for Cornel West that the Ivy League apparently has no shortage of universities willing to abandon academic standards in return for the dubious advantage of employing a publicity-loving con man. The latest dupe: Princeton University, which has just hired the black studies "scholar" away from Harvard University. Princeton is crowing about its "coup"; Harvard does not seem particularly distressed.
And no wonder. Unable to quit with dignity or decency, Mr. West used his decision to leave Harvard to inflate his public profile by attacking Harvard president Lawrence Summers. What was Mr. Summer's crime? Last fall, in a private conservation between the two men, the Harvard president dared suggest that Mr. West spend more time on scholarship and less on salesmanship, especially as Mr. West held one of the highly valued "university professorships" at Harvard. Mr. Summers, who himself had been Harvard's youngest tenured professor at age 28, believes that the job of a professor entails some responsibility to the institution's fundamental mission as a center for teaching and research. But Mr. West has long since abandoned serious scholarship for a role as a political cheerleader and self-promoting propagandist. Last year he found time to make 150 off-campus speaking appearances, often at $12,000 apiece, and to record a CD which he describes as "danceable education." He's also been happy to lend a hand to anti-Semites: He appeared alongside Louis Farrakhan at the Million Man March, and he worked on a committee exploring a Presidential run by Al Sharpton. And so he was naturally outraged by Mr. Summer's suggestion that he might want to crank out a few scholarly tomes now and then. Rather than defend himself on academic grounds, Mr. West fanned rumors that this was a racial issue. Like clockwork, Mr. Sharpton and fellow fraud Jesse Jackson loudly attacked Harvard and Mr. Summers. Still, Mr. Summers reportedly apologized to Mr. West for any misunderstanding and made several attempts to patch things up.
Meanwhile, Princeton's new president, Shirley Tilghman, and new provost, Amy Gutmann, had been fawning over Mr. West. And so Mr. West, apparently realizing that staying at Harvard might mean he'd have to publish some real work, decided to hop to Princeton, where he had previously taught from 1988 to 1994. Rather than leaving Harvard with grace, he showed his penchant for anti-Semitism when he told The New York Times, "Larry Summers strikes me as the Ariel Sharon of American higher education." When he's done with Princeton, Mr. West is well-positioned for a job offer from the University of Damascus.
Lawrence Summers deserves praise for acting like a conscientious academic leader, who is clearly strengthening Harvard by creating the conditions for a hack professor to relocate to Princeton. As for Princeton's academic leaders, they have simply provided a home for America's most prominent academic charlatan to sell his wares.
This is such a case.
William Flax Return Of The Gods Web Site
You mean the teeth are real? I thought that Registered had fixed yet another picture!
Live! Now on RadioFR!
6pm/9pm - TULL's TAWKIN: Special guest, Ralph Sarchie, an eighteen-year NYPD veteran, works out of the 46th Precinct in New York's South Bronx. But it is his other job that he calls "the Work" that I find interestering. Ralph, under the direction of the Catholic Church, investigates cases of demonic possession.
7pm/10pm - INS WHISTLEBLOWER RICK RAMIREZ GUEST ON SPECIAL EDITION "BANANA REPUBLICAN RADIO HOUR"
Click HERE to listen LIVE! while you FReep!
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.
