Summers is also infamous in the environmental justice world for authoring what is called the "World Bank Memo" in 1991 in which he, while head of the World Bank, advocated exporting first-world produced toxic wastes to the "vastly underpolluted" (from an economic standpoint) third world, particularly African nations, where the cost of life is so much cheaper (wages and health care) that it makes better economic sense for citizens of these areas to bear the brunt of the negative health effects from the poisonous substances. In gross economic terms, it costs less for an African citizen to get an environmentally-caused cancer because her lost wages and the cost of her health care (because she doesn't have it) is so much less. AND when he was president of Harvard, besides suggesting that women have a biologically-determined lower aptitude for math and science, he also tried to have Cornell West fired for not doing "serious scholarship." I wrote about these interconnections in Summer's thinking--and the thinking of the privileged class he represents--between racism, sexism, and environmental attitudes a bit in my dissertation. Any one else find this if not intentional, then not coincidental either?

Chaone
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Chaone Mallory, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor
Department of Philosophy
Villanova University
Villanova, PA 19085
610-519-3274
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Villanova Year of Sustainability
http://www.villanova.edu/sustainability/

Villanova Sustainability Conference:
http://www.villanova.edu/sustainability/yearofsustainabilty/conference/
________________________________________
From: Feminist ethics and social theory [[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of [log in to unmask] [[log in to unmask]]
Sent: Sunday, November 09, 2008 11:26 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Lawrence Summers

Another element of concern in the Obama post-election is that he will
apparently appoint Lawrence Summers as Secretary of the Treasury.  Summers
was the recent president of Harvard who was sacked for making derogatory
remarks about women's abilities to be scientists.

Is Obama less sensitive about gender issues than we'd like to think?  Or
does he regard the economic crisis as such an overwhelming priority that
he will appoint anyone who he thinks can fix it, regardless of their
record on gender issues?

Marilyn Friedman