"Not the Change I Was Expecting "

The Women's Media Center has this commentary by Veronica Arreola about the possible selection of former Lawrence Summers as Barack Obama's Secretary of the Treasury. Summers is currently an economics professor of Harvard, and previously served as president of Harvard and as treasury secretary for the final year and a half of the Clinton administration.

Arreola writes:

I am the president of the Larry Summers fan club. As the director of the Women in Science and Engineering program at the University of Illinois at Chicago, you might find that odd.

After his infamous statement in 2005 that women and girls had an intrinsic handicap towards math, explaining my job was a moot point. Everyone in my circle of friends and around the country knew the importance of running an academic support program for women majoring in science and engineering at a Research I institution. Despite the fact that women are going to college in record numbers and increasingly majoring in sciences, there are still those out in the world who think women just can’t hack it in the end. It also was an easier sell to donors and funders about the importance of the WISE office and our mission. So thank you, Larry for making my case so eloquently.

After his departure from the Harvard presidency he faded from the limelight. This week his name, along with New York Federal Reserve Chairman Timothy Geithner, has been bandied about as secretary of the treasury in the incoming Obama administration (can I just say how amazing it is to say that? The Obama administration!). Could the man who sold America on change seriously be considering appointing a man who suggested that Malia, Sasha and all of our daughters have a genetic disposition from not being able to math? Sadly yes.

Over at Open Left, Matt Stoller discusses some of Summers' shortcomings:

Summers was one of the key proponents of the banking deregulation of 1999 that led to the current financial crisis. In addition, Larry Summers has argued that women are innately less gifted in science than men, that 'Africa is Underpolluted', that child sweatshop work in Asia is sometimes justified, and that job destroying trade agreements are good for America.

People get stuff wrong all the time. That's not bad. But if you got the big stuff wrong, repeatedly, while being warned against it, you shouldn't be rewarded with a promotion.

Open Left has a petition to urge President-elect Obama not to appoint Summers to this critical post. I just signed it. I hope you will consider doing the same.

Update (11/10/08 10:55 p.m.): For a detailed analysis of Summers' failures as an economist, see this post at thenation.com by Mark Ames.