MEGAN MCARDLE: “Incidentally, having read Larry Summers’ remarks now, I think it’s pretty embarassing for academia that this scandal got as far as it did.”

UPDATE: Interesting observation from her comment section: “Larry Summers, politically much more adept than his critics here, seems to have pulled off a great example of ‘rope-a-dope’ by delaying the release of his remarks. The US college professoriate is currently driving its collective credibility off a cliff. Summers helped them along by offering them a ‘door to nowhere’, and they marched right through it.”

ANOTHER UPDATE: David Bernstein comments: “I would add that if Summers’ quite measured comments have gotten him into such hot water, imagine how regular faculty, untenured faculty, graduate students, and undergraduates whose views don’t reflect the politically correct mainstream are treated, and how much their careers can be placed in potential jeopardy.”

It seems to me that this is more reason to encourage intellectual diversification at places like Harvard.