Books and Articles of Academic Interest.

The Journal of Education is published by Boston University's School of Education, and the Fall 1998 issue (vol. 180, no.3) provides a stimulating examination of the theme, "Relativism and Pluralism." These issues, notes NAS member and guest editor M.D. Aeschliman, "confront educators every day, in contexts local, immediate, and existential, as well as in general and ultimate terms with regard to the aims of education and the beliefs, policies and procedures that inform it." Aeschliman is joined by classicist David Kovacs,Jewish theologian and moral philosopher David Novak, educational policy expert Charles L. Glenn, and historian of science Stanley L. Jaki. Together, the contributors examine the ethical relativism and nihilism that dominate contemporary academic and popular culture, within the long tradition of Western humanism and moral philosophy, which originated in classical Greece. Most contemporary college students, needless to say, are wholly unacquainted with this tradition, and often begin their undergraduate years with a firm conviction that "tolerance" is the highest virtue, while "judgmentalism" of almost anything--except, of course, of those who are "intolerant"--is the principal sin. And although we've heard this record many times before, as these essays demonstrate, students with few exceptions complete their baccalaureate educations, smugly reinforced in their initial attitudes, without the smallest consideration of the compelling alternatives found in the humanist tradition of the West. In his own contribution, "Why Shakespeare Was Not a Relativist and Why It Matters Now," Aeschliman describes the Bard's rejection of Machiavellian amoralism (read: relativism) in favor of a universalist ethics, while at the same time avoiding association with any of the sectarian religious extremism also prevalent during his lifetime. In view of this remarkable accomplishment, Aeschliman sees Shakespeare as a particularly effective moral teacher, less likely to be dismissed a priori as an outdated religious remnant. Taken together, these essays make a compelling case for restoring the Western humanist/ethical tradition to undergraduate education, a goal certainly endorsed by many readers of AQ.

It was big enough news to rate front-page space in the New York Times: in March 1999, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology released a report acknowledging the existence of "institutional"--although unintentional--discrimination against women on its faculty. The study had been undertaken in response to allegations brought by several female professors in MIT's School of Science and, according to Robert Birgeneau, the school's dean, provided solid empirical confirmation of their charges. The aggrieved female professors were compensated immediately and abundantly: their salaries were increased, they moved to larger offices, and they received more laboratory space and research funding among other benefits. They also became national heroines in the cause of academic gender equity and were feted at the White House for their accomplishment. A glowing, front-page account in the Chronicle of Higher Education noted that the MIT breakthrough was already inspiring female faculty at other such institutions as UCLA and Arizona.

Wait a minute, asked NAS member and psychologist Judith Kleinfeld: has anyone actually taken a close look the MIT study? In MIT Tarnishes Its Reputation with Gender Junk Science, a report prepared for the Independent Women's Forum, Kleinfeld did exactly that, and found something quite different from the "data driven" survey so highly touted by Dean Birgeneau. In the first place, the committee convened to investigate the charges of sex discrimination was composed largely of the complainants themselves--one of whom acted as its chair--who thus sat as judges in their own case. Further, the committee's final report presents no objective evidence of gender discrimination, such as female professors with distinguished publication records denied tenure or research leave, etc. Instead, the report cites only subjective feelings of dissatisfaction or generalized unhappiness, which, as one panelist noted, are not necessarily unique to female faculty. In this instance, ...