# Prof fired for saying talking snakes should not be taken literally **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [September 25, 2007, 9:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/prof-fired-for-saying-talking-snakes-should-not-be-taken-literally/420405 "2007-09-25T09:45:03Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 7\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![Sam\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Sam\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Stone)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2007, 10:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/prof-fired-for-saying-talking-snakes-should-not-be-taken-literally/420405/81 "2007-09-29T22:05:24Z")
Wouldn’t you agree that he was basically pressured into resigning because of these statements, though? And there can be little doubt that students and faculty are trying to shut down his ability to express his opinions on campus. For instance, he recently had a speaking engagement at a university cancelled after people protested against him. Here’s the thing: I think a university is a place where you should be allowed to voice all kinds of unpopular views. People going to university should understand that their own oxen might be gored, and they need to have a thick skin. That applies to both the right and the left. These days, it seems like most of the forces trying to suppress speech on campuses are coming from the left, though. Speech codes, attempts to shut down religious clubs, vandalism and theft of conservative flyers and newsletters, and the broad characterization of many conservative viewpoints as ‘hate speech’. The Larry Summers episode is a good example of the pressure that can come to bear on someone when they step outside the current orthodoxy on campus. ---
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2007, 7:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/prof-fired-for-saying-talking-snakes-should-not-be-taken-literally/420405/82 "2007-10-01T19:22:52Z")
[QUOTE=villa] That’s really just not true. Vulgarity/impropriety are minor restrictions, though still there. I already mentioned the Chaplinsky case to you. [/quote] Like I said, trivially. > [@](#): > > But time/context lead to significant restrictions on free speech. It is kind of easy, for example, for a municipality to prevent a Klan rally that was scheduled to take place at 3 a.m., while it is often much harder to prevent such a rally at 3 p.m. Wouldn’t a rally fall more into the “freedom of assembly” category? And the assembly is what necessitates speech at more than ‘indoor voices.’ > [@](#): > > Banning billboards in a historic neighborhood restricts the applicability of the First Amendment, but is certainly possible if done in the right fashion. Mind if I push that into the ‘trivial’ category? ---
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2007, 7:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/prof-fired-for-saying-talking-snakes-should-not-be-taken-literally/420405/83 "2007-10-01T19:36:01Z")
(Double post deleted) ---
**Author:** ![Algher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Algher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Algher)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2007, 7:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/prof-fired-for-saying-talking-snakes-should-not-be-taken-literally/420405/84 "2007-10-01T19:49:48Z")
[QUOTE=Sam Stone] How do the defenders of academic freedom here feel about the firing of Larry Summers from Harvard because he dared to say that the reason there are so fewer women than men in the sciences might have to do with the fact that females are drawn to different fields of study due to differences in the way females think? [/QUOTE] I deeply defend Academic Freedom. However, I see it as freedom to research things that some might not want researched, and freedom to teach the truth no matter how painful. That is freedom for faculty. It does not excuse assholish behavior, and it also rarely applies to rent-a-profs. It applies to tenure tracked (and, face it, actually tenured) members of the academic senate. University Presidents are in a different seat. As the public face of a school, they better be ready to play politics. Summers failed in politics, and generated the wrong type of publicity for the school. ---
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2007, 7:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/prof-fired-for-saying-talking-snakes-should-not-be-taken-literally/420405/85 "2007-10-01T19:50:01Z")
[QUOTE=Sam Stone] Wouldn’t you agree that he was basically pressured into resigning because of these statements, though? [/quote] Pressured by what - the exercise of free speech by other members of the university community? > [@](#): > > And there can be little doubt that students and faculty are trying to shut down his ability to express his opinions on campus. For instance, he recently had a speaking engagement at a university cancelled after people protested against him. People protested? My goodness! Again, it sounds like exercise of the rights to free speech and assembly. Were they protesting violently, so as to make Summers feel unsafe if he showed up on campus? Were they threatening to drown out his words if he spoke at the campus? If so, then you have a point. If not, then one person’s free speech rights _don’t_ depend on the failure of others to exercise _theirs_. > [@](#): > > Here’s the thing: I think a university is a place where you should be allowed to voice all kinds of unpopular views. People going to university should understand that their own oxen might be gored, and they need to have a thick skin. That applies to both the right and the left. Agreed. That means you must have a thick skin if a whole lot of people don’t like what you’ve been saying, and say so, as long as they don’t keep you from saying your piece. That “thick skin” requirement applies to Larry Summers. If he can’t take the heat… ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2007, 9:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/prof-fired-for-saying-talking-snakes-should-not-be-taken-literally/420405/86 "2007-10-01T21:01:10Z")
[QUOTE=Algher] University Presidents are in a different seat. As the public face of a school, they better be ready to play politics. Summers failed in politics, and generated the wrong type of publicity for the school. [/QUOTE] Actually, Summers only failed in campus politics. At no time did he lose the support of the Harvard Board of Governors, (which is why he was never fired), and I seem to recall reading a couple months after he resigned that Harvard donations were dropping precipitously with the former donors blasting the faculty for being out of line. (I have no idea whether “precipitous” was a drop of 30% or a drop of .003% at a time they were expected to go up and I am not sure where I read the article, so searching has not yet been successful.) Actually, I thought the faculty was out of line on the brains of women issue. (I only heard about his economics and race issues as an afterthought when the “girls can’t do math” brouhaha erupted, so I did not follow those issues and don’t have a serious opinion.) The way to tackle the observation Summers made about women and math is to do primary research and publish the conclusions that demonstrate his ideas were right or wrong. I am no more happy to see people silenced on campuses in the 1990s or 2000s for not following the doctrines of the Left than I was happy to see people silenced in the 1940s through 1960s for not following the doctrines on the Right. To silence a man is not to convert him. (It saddens me to see the U.S. Left employing the traditional tactics of the Right. 😛 ) ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2007, 12:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/prof-fired-for-saying-talking-snakes-should-not-be-taken-literally/420405/87 "2007-10-02T00:02:53Z")
The Wikipedia article on [Larry Summers](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Larry_Summers) led me to a [Boston Globe article discussing losses of donations](http://www.uh.edu/ednews/2006/bglobe/200607/20060714harvard.html). On the other hand, the Wikipedia article also mentions that the faculty was already pretty mad at Summers over his management style and other factors well before his outspoken comments created their problems, so it looks as though the faculty was not trying to stifle his freedom to address issues as much as they were simply trying to get him out of their lives. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/prof-fired-for-saying-talking-snakes-should-not-be-taken-literally/420405.md?page=4)