West Comments to Media on Polarizing Guest Speakers on Campuses

Professor of Law Emerita Marty West was quoted in an Oakland Tribune article on college protests against controversial speakers on college campuses. Referring to a scheduled UC Regents' dinner speech by former Harvard President Lawrence Summers that was cancelled after more than 350 faculty members objected because of Summers' 2005 comments that women's shortfalls in math and science may have genetic reasons, West said, "Maybe the bottom line is to only invite speakers who are respectful of differences." She added, "The university is not a place for hate speech or demagoguery."

In Summers' case, West said she and others objected to the secret nature of his appearance, which was to be at a private dinner for UC leaders in Sacramento. Controversial speakers are fine, she said, but they should speak in public.

The faculty petition said Summers' appearance "conveys the wrong message" to California because of his comments about women and his shaky relationships with minority professors. But, West said, many faculty members objected more to Summers' credentials than to his thoughts on race and gender.

West taught courses on Employment Discrimination, Labor Law, and Sex-based Discrimination at UC Davis School of Law. Her research has focused on discrimination against women faculty in higher education. In 2005, West and three colleagues at UC Davis issued the report, "Unprecedented Urgency: Gender Discrimination in Faculty Hiring at the University of California," analyzing the University of California's drastic decline in hiring women faculty after the UC Regents abolished affirmative action in 1995 and California passed Proposition 209 in 1996.

Oakland Tribune/September 24, 2007