ROGER SIMON COLUMN
MARCH 02, 2005
CAMBRIDGE, Mass. - - All the fellows at the Institute of Politics at Harvard, which is where I am hiding out for a semester, are assigned six undergraduate students to keep us out of trouble.
This is voluntary on their part and in return for all their hard work, they don't even get course credits.
So in order to both reward and shamelessly exploit them, I offered to let them write guest columns when they had something unique to say, and if they managed to say it well.
Robert Rogers fulfills both requirements. He is 19, a sophomore majoring in economics from Harrison, N.Y., and a director of the Franklin Afterschool Enrichment Program, a tutoring program for underprivileged children in the Dorchester section of Boston. Here is his piece:
By Robert Rogers
As a college student, I don't pay much attention to those dire,
overblown warnings about how my generation will not be prepared for the
job market that awaits us. But I am sensing that there is a scary trend
developing in our nation's political psyche for which my peers and I
will be woefully unprepared: the notion that one misstatement - - just one
little gaffe - - deserves to end a career.
There are four recent examples of this ridiculously unfair standard in
action, the most recent occurring with Harvard President Larry Summers.
A large faction of the faculty is calling for his resignation, because
Summers commented that differences in "intrinsic aptitude" might explain
why so many fewer women than men are top science professors. Granted,
the remarks were sexist. But they were off the cuff comments being
hashed out at a closed-door economists' conference, and he apologized.
Do we now believe that one insensitive remark in the midst of 20 years
of public speaking is a firing offense? So much for academic freedom of
speech.
Then there's CNN's Executive Vice President Eason Jordan, who was forced
to resign for suggesting that U.S. military forces in Iraq had targeted
some of the journalists who have been killed there. Now, clearly, that
statement is outrageous.
But no momentary slip of the tongue should bury a career. Put aside the fact that Jordan immediately backtracked from his remarks and apologized profusely. One gaffe should not negate 23 years of loyalty and dedication to an organization.
Let he who has never said anything he regrets cast the first stone.
Howard Dean went from being merely up against the ropes to being
dismissed as a wacko because of his fiery battle cry the night of the
Iowa caucuses.
A genius at grassroots organizing who had galvanized his
party was dismissed because of one bad impression of former WWF star Ric
Flair - - what a petty thing to bring someone down.
And for the sake of bipartisanship, let's not forget how unfairly Trent Lott was treated. He was forced out of the Majority Leader position for making kind remarks
to an old man at his last birthday party. Speaking at Strom Thurmond's
100th, he said that if Thurmond had been elected president, "we wouldn't
have had all these problems over these years."
Of course the statement was foolish - - it only makes sense if you consider civil rights one of our problems - - but should a man be forced out of his job for neglecting
political correctness when giving a birthday tribute to a retiring
colleague?
The reason that the "one gaffe and you're out policy" troubles me when I consider the career prospects of my generation is that our college academic careers are marked by zero accountability for any words we speak in the classroom.
The dirty little secret of a humanities and social sciences college education is that any statement that pours out of a student's mouth is hailed as a constructive insight, no matter how wrong or uninsightful.
In an effort to make everybody feel special and smart, academia has adopted a policy of knee-jerk acceptance of any answer a student gives in class, thus encouraging students to speak without thinking.
My friends and I often joke about how, whenever we fall behind on our
readings, have no fears, because our vague, meaningless statements in
class will elicit an, "Absolutely, that's an excellent point" from the professor.
How can you expect us to survive in this brave new workplace
in which one misstatement makes you toast?
You can't let the vocal tract run on auto pilot for four years and then suddenly expect people to carefully consider every word they say upon graduation. It just won't work.
An overnight transformation in college teaching style is not realistic.
So, why don't we just change our expectations and admit that we're all
human and we all make mistakes.
We all can think of many things we've said in our lives that we wish we could take back. Let's be a little more forgiving of human fallibility.
Because, if we aren't, my generation won't make it through our first days on the job.