Harvard Medical School Continues to Back False Research; Says U.S. Boys Are in Crisis

Read letter from MassNews publisher to Harvard spokesmen

By Atty. J Edward Pawlick
September 2001

Harvard Medical School has not yet backed down from its press release that there is a “national crisis” about boys even though the research for such a claim has never been published. Many are now questioning whether any valid research was ever done.

The sensational press release in June 1998 received national attention and many say has been used to damage boys and to change the way they are treated in schools across the nation.

The press release told about research from Harvard’s famous “expert” on boys, Dr. William Pollack, who wrote the bestseller, Real Boys, Rescuing Our Sons from the Myths of Boyhood.

None of the spokesmen for Harvard have replied to a letter sent by this newspaper about their current position on Dr. Pollack and his research.

Students Thought Research Was a ‘Farce’

This newspaper revealed in its July issue that the boys at Belmont Hill School were the teenagers who were used for the research, and those students thought that Pollack’s survey, which reportedly employed coercion, was a farce.

“No one around me took the exam seriously with such one-sided and leading questions being asked,” one former pupil told MassNews. “The test turned into a complete farce when kids began shouting out their answers to their classmates in an effort to make a joke.”

The letter from MassNews was sent to three persons at Harvard. They are Bruce Cohen, President of the school’s McLean Hospital; Margaret Dale, Assistant Dean for Faculty Affairs; and Carolyn Connelly, director of the medical school’s office for research protection.

Pollack Is a Feminist

Prof. Howard Schwartz of Oakland University says that the MassNews revelations about Pollack’s research confirm what he suspected already. “The only question is how much of his interviews Pollack made up. I suspect it was a lot.”

Schwartz added that the new information did nothing to reduce his uneasiness about the standards that Pollack applies to his work. “His data were collected in a very questionable fashion from an extremely non-representative sample of boys. It makes the head spin to think that he has generalized his findings into a full blown diagnosis of cultural crisis. It is becoming increasingly difficult to take Dr. Pollack seriously.”

A professor of organizational behavior, Prof. Schwartz studies the psychodynamics of political correctness and is publishing a new book on the subject. He sees that Pollack’s underlying goal is “to provide a theoretical basis for social engineering, for a certain kind of parenting – from a feminist perspective.”

He says, “Pollack sees no particular [positive] meaning in the role of the father. His images of fathers are just about uniformly negative. The whole idea behind the revolution in parenting that he is trying to bring about is [the notion] that the traditional family is throwing boys into distress by raising them to be like their fathers rather than like women.”

Pollack’s research came under attack last year in a book by Prof. Christina Hoff Sommers, of the American Enterprise Institute. She wrote in The War Against Boys that we are turning against boys as the result of research that is “riddled with errors.”

“On June 4, 1998,” she wrote, “McLean Hospital, the psychiatric teaching hospital of the Harvard Medical School, issued a two-page press release announcing the results of a new study of boys. The release ... reported that researchers at McLean and Harvard Medical School found that ‘psychologically “healthy” middle-class boys’ are anxious, alienated, lonely and isolated - ‘despite appearing outwardly content.’”

Harvard Spokesmen Told Different Story

According to a recent edition of Insight magazine, Dr. Cohen told it that Pollack’s research was not sponsored by the hospital although Cohen was president when the press release was issued.

Insight said, “This contradicts both Pollack’s book and the 1998 press release announcing a ‘McLean study’ declaring that boys feel ‘sadness about growing up to be men, a study by researchers at McLean Hospital and Harvard Medical School has shown.’”

Cohen also downplayed the link to Harvard and referred the reporter for the magazine to the Assistant Dean for Faculty Affairs, Margaret Dale, who stated, “To the best of my knowledge, Pollack’s research was not a Harvard study.”

The director of the medical school’s office for research protection, Carolyn Connelly, told the magazine, “Pollack’s study was not under Harvard Medical School jurisdiction and was not approved by HMS.” However, Pollack claims in the credits printed in the book that it was “derived in part from ... my ongoing research project at Harvard Medical School.”

Both Cohen and Connelly reiterated to Insight that “issues” about the research had arisen previously and Pollack had been instructed not to link the McLean or Harvard names to his research. “But one would have to say it’s a little late,” said the magazine. “McLean and Harvard did, after all, share the glory when the New York Times and the network-news celebrities rushed to hear their professor on the need to feminize American boys before they blow us up.”

Reminded of the 1998 Press Release, Cohen said he’d have to talk with public relations about announcements of “non-McLean studies.” Pollack’s book cites the research assistance of the hospital’s chief librarian and four employees who typed Pollack’s manuscript.

Copyright ©2001 Massachusetts News, Inc. Photocopying and data processing storage of all or any part of this issue may not be made without prior written consent.