In a September 4 post titled “The Isolated Milton Friedman,” I quoted two paragraphs from Michael Hirsh, Capital Offense: How American Scholars Answered America’s Future on Wall Street. I will not quote the entire passage again.
Here’s a verse that really surprised me, considering how warm and welcoming Milton was:
During most of those Cold War years, he remained a leader of the revolution, isolated and suspected even on the Chicago campus as the counterculture of the 1960s grew. There were times when no one would eat with him in the intellectual dining room. (Italics added.)
My comment was for something else, but, nevertheless, I had to comment that this episode shocked me in a strange way.
A longtime friend, Christopher Jehn (we’ve been friends since we met at Richard Thaler in 1977), sent me the following email and gave me permission to quote him:
I just finished reading your post of Sept 4th. on Friedman’s “segregation.” Your post and especially the quote from Hirsh was not true. Indeed Hirsh (and his references) sounds like a hoax. Remember I was a graduate student in Chicago from 1965 to 1970. I don’t recall any discussion, none, between the grad students or between us and the faculty, related to this issue. Which is strange.
It is something strange. I wonder where Hirsh got his information.
Source link