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Standing Out

Marriage in the Netherlands is in serious trouble. You don't have to take my word for it, because even the Netherlands' own statistical agency is making the same point. In this 2004 report "Trends in samenwonon en trouwen" ("Trends in cohabitation and marriage"), Jan Latten of the Dutch Central Bureau of Statistics paints a picture of radical institutional decline. And the most recent data from the Netherlands is fully consistent with this picture. At a minimum, this means that the "conservative case" for same-sex marriage has been refuted in the Dutch case. More than that, I argue, all signs point to same-sex marriage as a significant causal factor in Dutch marital decline...

Until 1997, when the Netherlands legalized Registered Partnerships, the Dutch out-of-wedlock birthrate was notably low... Here is Latten's summary of the state of marriage in the Netherlands: "More cohabiting, more children born to unmarried couples, more family breakups among unmarried couples... The development of relationships and families is seen as a strictly private affair, while restrictions imposed from the outside - in the form of marriage, parenthood or divorce - could only serve to limit the freedom of individuals within these settings." "The citizen," says Latten, "has retreated from the public square." He continues, "More and more children are born out of wedlock. Here too we find a shift away from formal frameworks... people view not just relationships but even parenthood as an exclusively personal affair."

We already know that the Dutch out-of-wedlock birthrate began increasing more quickly in the mid-1990s. Latten's more extensive data confirm this: "the number of informal two-parent families as a share of the total number of couples has almost tripled between 1995 and 2003. The number of formal two-parent families (married couples with children) on the other hand, has decreased."

Stanley Kurtz

National Review

http://www.nationalreview.com/kurtz/kurtz200602230800.asp

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Why Summers Fell

Harvard's 27th president announced his resignation last week, but Lawrence Summers's fall from grace actually began on Oct. 26, 2001, less than four months after his presidency began. That was the date on which he addressed the annual public service awards banquet at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government, and had the temerity to speak favorably of American patriotism - and, even more audaciously, to express admiration for the men and women who serve in the US armed forces.

Patriotism is a word ''used too infrequently" on campuses like Harvard's, Summers said, and too many academics regard those who wear the uniform with ''disaffection." He stressed ''the importance of clearly expressing our respect and support for the military," and pointedly voiced the ''hope that when you have this award next year, among those who will be recognized will be those who have served our country in uniform... [W]e need to remember that of all the kinds of public service, there is a special nobility, a special grace, to those who are prepared to sacrifice their lives for our country."

Summers followed up that message in a Veterans Day letter to Harvard cadets and midshipmen, writing that he ''and many others deeply admire those of you who choose to serve society in this way." And in remarks to the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, he described military service as ''vitally important to the freedom that makes possible institutions like Harvard."

In most of America, such views are commonplace. But at Harvard - where ROTC has been banned for more than 30 years - more than a few faculty members were bound to find them appalling. Just how much they rankled is suggested by the fact that on the day Summers resigned, one of his most virulent opponents - anthropology professor J. Lorand Matory - told an interviewer that among the things that made the university president so unbearable was his ''telling us we should be more patriotic."

Jeff Jacoby

Townhall

http://www.townhall.com/opinion/columns/jeffjacoby/2006/02/27/187913.html

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Feminist Victory

A Defeat for Academic Freedom

Lawrence H. Summers is stepping down as president of Harvard University. His critics cite a number of missteps - from challenging the eminent African-American professor Cornell West to expressing support for the U.S. military - that contributed to his demise. But those were minor scrapes; he's leaving because he never recovered from a wound inflicted by the Harvard gender police.

At an academic conference last January, Summers made the mistake of speculating that innate differences between men and women may in part explain why more men than women reach the upper echelons of science and math. Radical feminists were aghast and called for his removal. More than a year later, they finally got their man.

It's testament to the bizarre world of academia. Leftist feminists are increasingly misfits in American politics (each election feminist groups promise that women are going to vote in mass for a liberal revolution - it has yet to happen), but they are big men on campus. In academia's ivory tower, they can instill their world view on impressionable youngsters and make or break aspiring academics.

In this bubble, a self-proclaimed feminist like MIT biology professor Nancy Hopkins can with a straight face describe nearly fainting after hearing Summers suggest there are gender differences: "I felt I was going to be sick. My heart was pounding and my breath shallow. I was extremely upset." Her over-reaction is itself evidence of gender differences (can anyone imagining a male professor reacting like that?), but it would be taboo to say so on a politically correct campus.

Conservatives have spent years trying to raise awareness that true academic inquiry has been sacrificed to political correctness. Summers ousting may mark an important turning point in this effort. After all, Summers was the Treasury Secretary under President Bill Clinton - hardly a right-wing ideologue. His failure to pass the campus liberal litmus test may convince many that the problem is real.

Carrie Lukas

Townhall

http://www.townhall.com/opinion/columns/CarrieLukas/2006/02/24/187776.html