Kudos to Scholars

We were recently honored to welcome sociologist William Julius Wilson to the Kennedy School of Government, and we are proud to roll out the red carpet once again. The Kennedy School has announced that it has tenured three more noted scholars: sociologist Christopher Jencks, anthropologist Katherine Newman and labor economist George Borjas.

These new professors were plucked from Northwestern University, Columbia University and the University of California at San Diego, respectively. Jencks, who has shared the spotlight with Wilson as one of the nation's most influential sociologists, has written extensively about socio-economic inequality and the homeless. Newman has done ground-breaking research on the urban working poor, and Borjas is an expert on the relationship between immigration and labor markets.

A Kennedy School spokesperson said that Wilson's recent appointment may have influenced Jencks, Newman and Borjas to also come here. The "critical mass" of Harvard academics who are active in social policy research just continues to build.

We commend the Kennedy School for assembling such an impressive group of scholars. The Malcolm Wiener Center for Social Policy has undoubtedly become the most influential institution for addressing dilemmas such as poverty, crime and economic inequality.

We are especially glad that these scholars will produce new and insightful research on our nation's enduring social problems. Too often, complex issues such as welfare get reduced to election-year soundbites. Politicians and demagogues are often quick to suggest half-baked remedies and are frequently more concerned with impressing voters than speaking honestly about America's ills.

We hope Harvard's social policy powerhouse will be able to inject a more reasoned level of analysis into the national debate. The current discourse about social problems needs to become less based on myths and fears and more focused on the judicious research that scholars such as Jencks, Newman and Borjas provide. We hope their research will encourage more reasoned policy coming out of Washington. Although academics have not always been able to influence public policy, we hope that Harvard's collection of academic all-stars will speak in a voice the country finds impossible to ignore.