South of the Border

Tomorrow I leave for my first vacation in—well, not in that long—but certainly since winter began. (I was never a huge fan of Cambridge winters.) I'm headed to warmer climes to do a little diving.

But I will have e-mail access, and I will try to post as need be.

In the meantime, thanks to all of you who read this blog and participate in the discussion about the Summers presidency and the future of Harvard. It's an important conversation, and I'm grateful to be able to play whatever small part in it I can. But every so often, I need to get underwater to get some balance back into my life. It's quite a humbling experience, and in that sense very healthy.

See you soon, if not before.  ¶ 12:50 PM 8 comments   

  Bridging the Faculty-Student Gap One of the unfortunate lessons of the Summers experience at Harvard is the revelation of just how great is the gap between students and faculty. Both groups disagree about Larry Summers, and both groups are finding it hard to understand the other's perspective. This is not healthy. I think you see some evidence of that in the postings on this blog; there's some mutual acrimony that is unfortunate.

That's why I was pleased to see this editorial by Harvard lecturer Timothy McCarthy in today's Crimson. McCarthy—whose Harvard story constituted one chapter of Harvard Rules—is no fan of Summers. But he's also a dedicated teacher who, partly because of his relative youth and partly because of his philosophy, is unusually close to his students. So his editorial tries to both explain the nature of the faculty's opposition to Summers while suggesting ways to bridge the divide between professors and students.

His conclusion: Summers’ [departure] thus poses an important challenge. As faculty members, we must articulate clearly and persuasively the reasons for our own discontent with the president. Moreover, we must take student grievances seriously by engaging undergraduates in conversation—publicly and privately—in an effort to restore their confidence in us as educators who are fully committed to Harvard’s long-term health. We must demonstrate our desire to work closely with students to reform the undergraduate curriculum, and we must devote ourselves more assiduously than ever to good teaching and advising. Together, we must work to make Harvard the institution it can and should be—a place of higher learning where critical debate coincides with mutual respect, where moral values triumph over market values, and where transparency replaces secrecy. We have a better chance of accomplishing all of this now that Larry Summers is gone.

I think that's a reasonable viewpoint, and a constructive one. The aftermath of the Summers presidency poses real risks, but also presents great opportunities, and all parties have to be careful to avoid bickering and recriminations. (At the same time, the truth about what has really happened over the past years does need to come out.)

I've often asked readers of this blog whether Harvard is better off now than it was five years ago. I find it incontestable that it is not. But at the moment, the more important question is whether it could be—and I believe the answer is yes, and in a relatively short period of time. The challenge lies in asking, Where do we go from here to making this university a better, more harmonious, more cohesive institution? Tim McCarthy's editorial is a step in the right direction.  ¶ 12:32 PM 0 comments   

  A Crimson Vet and Summers Supporter Speaks Several items below, I posted a photograph of five former Crimson—ians who painted L-A-R-R-Y on their chests to show their support for Larry Summers at a Dunster House study break.

I've criticized the paper for the action, on the grounds that whether these people covered Summers or no, whether they are currently on the Crimson or not, it's inappropriate for someone affiliated with the newspaper to engage in such a public display of affection. It has hurt the Crimson's appearance of objectivity, I argued.

I still believe that. But one of the people in the photo has written a long rebuttal to this argument that is serious and worthy of being read. It's in a comment below, but I'm going to post it here so it's more visible. You all can make up your own mind.

[Meanwhile, Crimson folks, could you please correct those things about me in the Sam Teller interview? What's good for the goose, eh?]

[Also, while I realize that not everyone took my joke about the chest-painting as "totally gay" in the sardonic spirit in which it was intended, I still think there's something a little American Idol-ish about the act. But there you are.]

Richard -

Being as you continue to trash on us, calling us an "embarrassment to the paper," I feel like I need to respond to your comments.

First of all, it should be noted that we were all acting within the confines of our own dormitory, at a study break which had been planned out months ago. This was far from a public forum. But this is truly an aside from the points you are making; I simply wanted to point this out.

Second of all, none of us have to do with Summers coverage on the Crimson. I will break down our roles for you:

There are two photographers, one of which last contributed to the Crimson in 2003, and the other of which is a former executive editor. There is a sports beat reporter, mainly with a focus on soccer and lacrosse. He has not written any news stories. There is the business manager. The former business manager was certainly a member of the executive guard, but someone with no control over content. Finally, there is a former news executive editor. This is as close as you get with hitting home on your point. However, the news executive is not one who has covered Summers, or one who oversaw Summers coverage - an archive search turns up no references to Summers in the headline or lede of any articles. The total Summers coverage from these five individuals is in the form of two photographs: one mugshot, and one appearance at a study break dancing with freshmen, both in early 2005.

I should note that only executive guard members have any say over content that appears, and none of these executive influenced Summers coverage, nor have we given the appearance that we have.

None of us have, or have had any impact on Summers coverage throughout this ordeal, and as former editors, our actions do not reflect upon current coverage.

Those who must remain impartial on The Crimson are those who cover Summers, and those who control the content that he appears in. The Crimson, just like any other newspaper is clear about this; for example, The Crimson has written staff editorials supporting Summers. By definition, some members of the staff have taken a stance on the issue. We have made no effort not to weigh in on the topic as a staff – much like any major newspaper advocates for political candidates and political policies – but those who report on Summers do not participate.

Claiming that all Crimson staffers should remain mum on the issue is like stating no member of a magazine (former or current) should ever staff a political campaign, or join an organization on which the publication has reported. On the contrary, this restriction becomes quite silly unless is deals with only those reporters and editors who cover the topic. Do you think no one from the New York Times, George Magazine, or The New Republic, has ever advocated a cause or candidate discussed within its pages?

The Crimson currently covers all the varsity sports that take place on campus. Some Crimson editors are athletes. Does this bias the Crimson's coverage of sports? Should the organization force these editors to choose either their team or The Crimson? No - so long as they do not cover their own sport.

The Crimson reports on Harvard football. Does this preclude all editors from cheering in the stands, or, gasp, painting their chests in support?

I think this is truly the point that is of concern. The Crimson, or any other publication, would be paralyzed if every one of its editors had to refrain from taking stances on any issue covered in the paper, or expressing any sorts of opinions relating to any aspect of the publication’s coverage.

You also mention that perhaps we had a "booster-ish" attitude while we were contributing to the Crimson. Perhaps some of us did (I can only speak for myself), but any reporter might have any opinion on a given issue. Those who cover politics likely vote, and thus have an opinion strong enough to pull them to the polls; the important thing is that if they cover an issue, they cover it objectively and not publicly take a stance. Though we have publicly taken a stance, we did so after our tenure ended, and stayed away from Summers coverage during our time at the paper. The fact that we may have had an opinion, whether or not we covered Summers, is again irrelevant. We all have opinions about President Bush, but some still report on him.

The conflict of interest argument also cannot be applied retroactively - just because someone has an opinion now doesn't mean they shouldn't have covered an issue in the past. However, again, this is irrelevant, as none of us did cover Summers.

I think it's important that I address these issues if they concern you, and if this represents the organization's biggest flaw during all this coverage, I think it serves as a testament to the great reporting current editors have done so far.

I also think it is important that we try to maintain discourse while examining the issue - if you have a problem with coverage in the future, please say so, because I think it fosters productive discussion, but I personally think printing headlines such as "The Crimson Shows Its True Colors" and “Bad Journalism,” while labeling us as an "embarrassment" and “totally gay,” is at best inflammatory, and doesn't serve to further these goals.

Best,
“R”   ¶ 7:53 PM 22 comments   

  Google and Libraries: An Update InsideHighered.com does a nice wrap-up of a panel discussion on the Google project to digitize libraries at Harvard and Stanford, the universities of Oxford and Michigan, and the New York Public Library.

This isn't a simple right-and-wrong debate, but it certainly raises questions of copyright that should concern every author or potential author.

Imagine if you could go online and download every song ever written for free. You can try to do that, but it's pretty hard these days. Google would do with books exactly what the RIAA has been fighting with music....  ¶ 6:15 PM 0 comments   

  The Real Threat to Free Speech In Salon, cartoonist Doug Marlette, creator of the cartoon below, stands up for the First Amendment. Sample sentence: "Once these [Danish cartoons] became a major news story... I can see little reason -- other than bodily fear, bottom-line self-preservation, and just poor judgment -- that the U.S. media and the public officials entrusted with defending our freedoms wimped out so thoroughly when challenged to live up to their historic obligation under the First Amendment to keep the American public informed."

He's right, of course....and by the way, after the cartoon below was published, Marlette received thousands of death threats. What a surprise.


  ¶ 9:20 AM 0 comments   

  More Backlash Meanwhile, over at the Weekly Standard, Peter Berkowitz (who was once denied tenure at Harvard, and sued) writes that Summers' end is part of an attack on free speech, and that Summers should never have apologized for his remarks on women-in-science.

Berkowitz sounds like a reasonable man, and he makes about as strong a case for this argument—it's something of an old saw by now—that can be made. But his argument suffers from the lack of a broader awareness of Summers and the question of free speech. Because as I've written before, the greatest threat to free speech at Harvard was, ironically enough, Larry Summers himself.

It was Summers who tried to control and manipulate the press, rewarding favored journalists (James Traub, Daniel Golden) while cutting off others (yours truly, the Financial Times reporter he threw out of his office, etc.). It was Summers who created a climate of fear on campus which made professors and staffers afraid to talk to journalists, and sometimes even their peers. Summers who squelched debate about Israel when he pronounced that all those who favored divestment from Israel were anti-Semitic. Summers who criticized Cornel West for his political support of Al Sharpton and Ralph Nader. Summers who refused to support the law school's suit against the Defense Department, which charged that the Solomon Amendment was, in effect, a prohibition on free speech. Summers who refused to speak against the Patriot Act, not even the section of it which allows the government to track what books students checked out of Widener Library. Summers who made his own deans nervous about talking to the press, and Summers who insisted that press releases from around the university be vetted through Mass Hall. Summers who forbade anyone who worked for him to say anything on behalf of embattled Commencement speaker Zayed Yasin.

I could go on...but you get the point.

What free speech under Summers seemed to mean was that, while the speech of others was limited, Summers could say anything he wanted, no matter how offensive or just plain inaccurate—and then, if criticized for it, he and his defenders would retreat to the "I'm being attacked by the politically correct" line.

Of course, even without knowing the big picture, you could still argue that the reaction to Summers' women-in-science remarks was an attack on free speech. But in my opinion, even that is a weak argument. If you vehemently disagree with something—and you think it's just the latest in a series of leadership gaffes—you're going to express yourself passionately, and you might even come to the conlusion that you lack confidence in the speaker.

No one was saying that Summers didn't have the right to make those remarks...but the expression of strong opinions has consequences.
_________________________________________________________________

P.S. I was disappointed to see these remarks from Andrew Sullivan:

Peter Berkowitz blames the Harvard president's refusal to stand up resolutely enough for free speech, including his own. He was cashiered because he was too apologetic. Appeasement never works. They get you in the end.

Andrew's defense of free speech in other contexts is laudable. But here, it's just misguided, glib and wrong.  ¶ 8:40 AM 3 comments   

  Anti-Semitism and Harvard In the Globe, Alex Beam raises the delicate question of whether opposition to or support for Israel is the "fault line" dividing professors' feelings towards Summers.

Beam looks at statements made by Alan Dershowitz, New Republic owner Martin Peretz, and professor Ruth Wisse; all three Summers defenders use language such as "coup" and "putsch" to describe the process of Summers' ouster.

And he describes an argument between Dershowitz and Randy Matory over Matory's statement that, as Dershowitz described it, "people who insisted that Palestinians have rights should be quiet." Matory remembers the exchange differently.

This is an explosive issue, and you can feel Beam treading carefully as he raises it. (He's careful not to take sides.)

I am surprised that he did not mention Edward Glaeser's comparison of David McClintick's II article to the Protocols of the Elders of Zion...that seems relevant.

In the conclusion of his column, Beam asks Ruth Wisse if she thinks that anti-Semitism was behind Summers' resignation. She strongly hints that she thinks the answer is yes.

To wit:

When I broached the notion of a ''fault line" with Wisse, who happens to be Harvard's Martin Peretz professor of Yiddish literature, she answered my question with a question: ''That's not the question that I'm being asked. The question that I'm being asked is, 'Was anti-Semitism the driving engine of this coup?' "

Well, what is the answer?, I asked her more than once. ''It's the point of view of many people who watch these things closely," she replied. ''It's something the Globe should investigate."

Is it really? I'd be curious to hear your thoughts.  ¶ 7:52 AM 3 comments   

  The Times and the Shleifer Scandal On the third page of today's New York Times business section, Sara Ivry weighs in with a piece about the influence of David McClintick's Institutional Investory story on the Shleifer scandal.

Ivry summarizes the article and quotes various people (myself included) on the extent of its influence. Surprisingly, I thought that it was quite influential, and Alan Dershowitz did not.

(That last line is to be read with a veneer of sarcasm.)

To my mind, McClintick's reporting both distilled the essence of the Shleifer scandal and provided a bevy of appalling specifics. Dershowitz, however, claims that "there weren't more than 20 or 30 people who read it" and that it was "full of leaps of logic."

Mr. Dershowitz has a remarkable facility for throwing out unsupported numbers that happen to support his personal opinions—the majority of professors and students at graduate schools are solidly behind Summers, only 20 or 30 people read the McClintick story. It is almost as if he had done research.

I would like to invite Mr. Dershowitz to name one or two leaps of logic. Because, after all, I'm sure that he would never smear a journalist's work without having something to back up his smear.

Professor, you are a great one for challenging people to debate, so I'd like to challenge you to share your criticisms of the McClintick story. You could either post something below, or, if you prefer, e-mail me at richard@richardbradley.net. I'll post whatever you write, unless it's your unpublished novel. As the kids would say, If you got it, bring it.

Meanwhile....Summers' spokesman John Longbrake, whose job must really be unpleasant these days—and by the way, there used to be "Harvard spokespeople," and now we have "Summers' spokesman," a telling shift—declined to say whether Summers himself had read the piece and whether it had influenced his decision to resign.

Ivry probably couldn't have gotten an answer to this, but I wish she had put those questions to members of the Corporation.

Couple of points.

The existence of this article—particularly in the Times, particularly in the hard-news business section—is not good for Summers. There, in the title, you have "Expose"—sorry, don't know how to type the accent over the second "e" on this keyboard—followed by the words "Harvard's President."

Then, in the subhead, you have the phrase "Lack of Candor."

Such language makes powerful impressions. And there's more of it.

Readers of this blog may have noted that I continually refer to the Shleifer scandal as "the Shleifer scandal." That's because I believe it to be scandalous, and because I hope that the word "scandal" becomes firmly attached to any description of the episode. Not the "Shleifer case" or the "Shleifer affair," but the "Shleifer scandal."

So I'm delighted to see Ivry say that I have "written frequently about the scandal on [my] blog." Every time the word "scandal" is used in reference to the Shleifer, um, scandal, a little bit of history is shaped. (And, of course, it's nice to see some mention of this blog in print.)

Finally, I think Ivry did a nice job with this piece, and not just because she quoted me accurately. McClintick's article was influential, and it was smart to point that out, and Ivry did so fairly. Sometimes, the Times reminds you of how good it can be.  ¶ 6:51 AM 5 comments   

  At Harvard, the Backlash Continues Over at the Times, John Tierney joins the growing ranks of columists and commentators who seem to know virtually nothing about what's really been going on at Harvard but are happy to play the anti-intellectual card and bash the faculty.

Writes Tierney: Harvard is an institution run for the benefit of the tenured faculty, as Summers discovered too late. His attempts to shake it up appealed to students and the junior faculty, but tenured professors were appalled when he told them to work harder. He dared to suggest that professors teach survey courses geared to undergraduates' needs — an onerous idea to academics accustomed to teaching whatever's in their latest book.

And of course Tierney quotes that Crimson poll —the now-infamous 3:1 ratio—as evidence of the faculty coup. According to Tierney, "Harvard has been able to take its undergraduates for granted. (It was a radical innovation when Summers called attention to surveys measuring students' dissatisfaction.)"

Mr. Tierney seems oblivious to the fact that the surveys in question generally measured student satisfaction with their social life, not their academic life. In any case, one could argue that Summers could best have improved the student experience by authorizing his dean to conduct an ambitious and profound curricular review. Of course, Summers tried to run it himself, and he did it so badly that the review is in shambles; the undergraduates who are allegedly so fond of Summers have not been well-served.

There's an interesting phenomenon happening here. Back when Summers made his women-in-science remarks, he was easily, probably unfairly, caricatured because the remarks could be personified in a specific individual.

But now the faculty is being caricatured simply because columnists can rail against "lazy" professors with "delicate psyches"—in Tierney's words—without actually having to name any of them. Or recognizing that the professors who do probably the least teaching and have the least contact with students are in Larry Summers' economics department. Or that the people most resistant to teaching those survey courses are usually in the sciences, an area upon which Summers lavished much of his attention and none of his criticism.

Summers was caricatured as an individual; the FAS is caricatured as a collective. And in some ways that is harder to redress than an individual's grievance. It plays into the hands of anti-intellectuals all over the country, who are only too willing to believe (as Tierney is) in lazy, smug, self-satisfied scholars.

(It will be interesting indeed when Harry Lewis' book, Excellence Without a Soul, comes out, charging that it is Summers who has truly failed Harvard undergraduates.)

I am amazed at the ability of columnists even at the Times to rail against the faculty and claim that they were up in arms because Summers told them to "work harder" without citing a shred of evidence to back this up.

Is it too much to ask for a single example? Just one solitary figure, kicking back in his overstuffed chair and telling Summers to stuff it?

I guess I'm just old-fashioned that way. I think journalists—even columnists—ought to provide some proof before they slam a 700-person group.

(And no, Cornel West doesn't count, because when it came to teaching undergraduates, Cornel West was one of the hardest-working professors at Harvard or anywhere else. And he happened to teach the most popular survey course on campus when Summers hauled him in for a tongue-lashing. But that is an irony which Tierney clearly doesn't know of.)

I'm also intrigued by that reference to "junior faculty" being pleased by Summers' attempts to shake up Harvard. It's true that Summers wanted to make it easier for junior faculty to win tenure, and I think that's generally a good idea. At the same time, I know plenty of junior faculty who, putting aside their professional self-interest, thought that Summers was a terrible president.

Mr. Tierney, in fact, is so uninformed—but has these curious details, such as the junior faculty thing and the surveys about student satisfaction—that one has to wonder if he didn't have one of those well-known background phone calls with Larry Summers.....

I know that some people have expressed concern about Summers staying through June. If Summers is now using the resources of his office to influence the way in which his presidency will be remembered—and to promote attacks on the Harvard faculty—that concern is well justified.

What in hell is Commencement going to be like?

Answer: a circus.

And somehow I think Summers—who, I think, kind of enjoys all the attention— wouldn't have it any other way.  ¶ 10:08 AM 27 comments   

  The Crimson Shows Its True Colors Below, former Crimson editors and business people show off their objectivity....(thanks to the poster who brought this to my attention; you can find the original here.)

  ¶ 8:56 AM 9 comments   

  Common Sense A letter to the Crimson from Argentina makes a point that I haven't heard yet but that is so important, it cries out to be emphasized:

To the rest of the world, Harvard stands for values greater than just academic excellence. Your editorial seems to suggest that because Dr. Summers could get a much-needed job done faster and better than anyone else, values such as personal dignity and civilized behavior are secondary.

Allow me to suggest that, as future leaders of the nation, you reconsider your own values.

It is gracious of the writer to concede that Summers could get the job done "faster and better than anyone else"—the evidence clearly doesn't support that—but even assuming it's true, his eloquent point remains.

Harvard students are smart and they will certainly, as their lives go on, become successful and influential. All the more reason, then, that they carry along with them the values of civility, decency, humility, and fairness—values that were conspicuously lacking in Larry Summers' leadership. Harvard alums need not just be rich people, powerful people—they must also be good people. As opposed to, say, Andrei Shleifer, whose behavior was appalling, but who was protected and promoted by Harvard's president.

These are intangible things, but in the long run, they may actually be more important than having a president who goes to pizza breaks and autographs dollar bills.  ¶ 8:21 AM 11 comments   

  At Harvard, Whispers of Anti-Semitism In a Crimson piece about the Corporation's belated statement on the Andrei Schleifer scandal, Glimp Professor of Economics Edward L. Glaeser, a Summers ally, is quoted as saying this about David McClintick's 18,000-word article on the scandal in Institutional Investor magazine:

"[It] is a potent piece of hate creation—not quite ‘The Protocols of the Elders of Zion,’ but it’s in that camp.”

Not quite the Protocols of the Elders of Zion?

David McClintick's article was a painstakingly researched piece of investigative reporting into illegal and sleazy behavior. The fact that the protagonists involved are (I guess) Jewish is irrelevant. Unless every imputation of unethical behavior to a Jew is now to be considered anti-Semitic.

Along with Alan Dershowitz, Glaeser now becomes the second Harvard professor strongly suggesting that Summers' critics are anti-Semitic. Neither man has come out and said so explicitly, but they're inching up to it.

This is an ugly charge. If Dershowitz and Glaeser believe it, then they have an obligation to make their case explicitly, with all the seriousness it merits. Otherwise, they should stop hinting, and Glaeser should apologize to David McClintick.

_______________________________________________________________

By the way, Crimson writer Anton S. Troianovski buries the quote in the story's last graf. Are you kidding me? Here's a suggestion: A full story with the headline, "Summers Ally Compares Journalist's Account to Anti-Semitic Propaganda."  ¶ 8:03 AM 3 comments   

  Another Crimson Editor for Summers And this one didn't even cover him....  ¶ 8:00 AM 3 comments   

  America Gets Offensive You think the Danish cartoons were insulting? Then don't watch this animated commentary on the cartoon affair courtesy of the website dumpalink.com. (I don't know them, but I hope they've had a nice life.)

Sample line: "Don't want any more cartoons? Here's an idea: Stop bombing shit."

It's wildly offensive, deliberately immature, pretty smart, and utterly American. Which is to say that it's not going to go over real well in Pakistan....  ¶ 7:44 AM 0 comments   

  Bad Journalism, Part Deux Here's some interesting material* from the Crimson's report on Larry Summers' visit to Dunster House last night:

....last night bore a closer resemblance to a Grand Slam event. Harvard University Police Department provided security, checking Harvard identification at the door—and a group of five Crimson editors and former Crimson executives seated in the third row greeted Summers with the letters L-A-R-R-Y painted on their chests in red paint.

Crimson editors are painting Summers' name on their chests?

Um....Crimson folks? You people do realize how seriously your credibility has just been compromised, don't you? If you guys want to be taken seriously—and if you don't want the entire community to think you're in the tank for Summers—you need to explain what just happened.

Also—not that there's anything wrong with this—but you do realize how totally gay that is, don't you?

_________________________________________________________

* Thanks to the poster who brought this incident to my attention....  ¶ 8:08 PM 10 comments   

  Passing the Hat for Larry Summers Interested in giving money to a great university? Well, here's a solicitation for a "unique new giving opportunity" that was sent around Harvard yesterday. While some question its veracity, others say that this truth-in-fundraising approach is just part of the new, post-Summers Harvard.....

Unique New Giving Opportunity

Nathaniel Eaton University Professorship
To select friends of Harvard:

Events of the last few days have unexpectedly created the opportunity for a few specially chosen friends of Harvard to endow a new University Professorship to be occupied by outgoing president Lawrence H. Summers. Please consider this unique opportunity to help establish the Nathaniel Eaton University Professorship. To underscore the distinction of the first incumbent, the name of this chair harks back to Harvard’s earliest days. Nathaniel Eaton, a friend of John Harvard, was Harvard College’s first head – not president, as there was neither a Faculty nor a board of Fellows or Overseers over which to preside. He was simply Master Eaton, and his faculty consisted of a single assistant master. Eaton served for the academic year 1638-39, after which applications to Harvard fell to a low, not since equaled, of zero, and the College went dormant for a year. The Nathaniel Eaton University Professorship will be distinctive not only for connecting today’s Harvard to its origins and for recalling the brief tenures of both Eaton and Summers. Eaton was also Summers’ equal in scholarly brilliance and in brusque faculty management style, and both Summers and Eaton were troubled by governance crises. Harvard historian Samuel Eliot Morison recounts Eaton’s brief term in office:

The trust placed in Nathaniel Eaton by the community was hardly justified. Very little is known of the single academic year in which he conducted the College, in the former Peyntree House, and that little is not to his credit. ‘He was a Rare Scholar himself, and he made many more such,’ wrote Cotton Mather; the studies were, one infers, of the English freshman grade; but Eaton was too prone to drive home lessons with the rod. At the opening of the second academic year, in August, 1639, the Master made the mistake of beating his assistant so briskly with a walnut-tree cudgel, ‘big enough to have killed a horse,’ that Thomas Shepard rushed in from the parsonage next door to save the poor man’s life, and the magistrates haled Eaton into court for assault. On that occasion there was a general ventilation of complaints against Eaton for brutality, and against his wife for the quality of food and quantity of drink dispensed to her boarders. The magistrates, who had been whipped themselves in school or college, were not disposed to dismiss Eaton for an occasional flogging. But the food question was more serious. … Eaton was promptly dismissed, and fled the country, and after sundry adventures in Virginia, Italy, and England, died in debtors’ prison in Southwark, hard by his friend Harvard’s birthplace. – Three Centuries of Harvard, 9-10.

The great university of which we are privileged to be members rose from the ashes of Eaton’s administration.

Donations may be sent to the Recording Secretary, designated for the Nathaniel Eaton University Professorship.  ¶ 2:21 PM 2 comments   

  Around the Ivies, Relief that It Didn't Happen There The Columbia Spectator and Yale Daily News both run articles saying, essentially, Whew! So glad it happened at Harvard and not to us.

Okay, that's a little reductive. The Spectator editorial actually praises Larry Summers for his vision and encourages president Lee Bollinger to avoid Summers' mistakes.

(It occurs to me that if Larry Summers had been president at Columbia, where political sensitivity is dramatically greater than at Harvard, he would have been not just ousted, he would have been run out of town on a rail.)

The Yale Daily News article discusses the stylistic differences between Yale president Richard Levin and Larry Summers. Apparently they interviewed some very wise commentators:

Richard Bradley '86, the author of "Harvard Rules: The Struggle for the Soul of the World's Most Powerful University," said the absence of criticism by Levin following the remarks about women and science seems logical.

"Any criticism President Levin might have made would probably have been viewed as a product of the Yale-Harvard rivalry, rather than considered on its merits," Bradley said in an e-mail. "In any case, criticizing the president of another university doesn't seem like Levin's style."


  ¶ 9:32 AM 2 comments   

  Another Advertisement for Myself As readers of this blog will know, the way conservative commentators rush to portray the ouster of Larry Summers as another example of political correctness run amok makes me want to stab myself in the neck with a jagged shard of glass. But that would only give those folks satisfaction.

So, in this op-ed for the Los Angeles Times, I tried to channel my frustration in a more constructive mode.

Here's the nut graf:

"The real lesson of Summers' failure at Harvard is very different... Summers was ousted not because of a clash of conservative versus liberal ideologies. After all, Summers was Bill Clinton's former Treasury secretary. He is a liberal. The real problem was that Harvard's faculty rejected the encroachment of Washington politics."

If you like that, do check out the rest....  ¶ 9:20 AM 2 comments   

  Apparently I've Been Busy Things have been busy here on upper Broadway for the past couple of days. Apparently someone important just resigned his job....

Sam Teller of FM, the Crimson's weekly magazine, interviews me for their "Fifteen Minutes With..." feature. I slagged Sam last week for what struck me as over-the-top questioning during his interview with Judith Ryan, but he was fair to me and so I take it all back.

Which is not to say that I was completely satisfied, Sam.

To wit: Your headline calls me a "Harvard critic." Eh...not really. I can live with "Larry Summers critic," but I'm a big believer in Harvard.

Also, if you're going to call me a Harvard critic, shouldn't you at least mention that I went there? "A.M., '91," if you must know. ("Harvard dropout," if you prefer.) I know you Crimson folks don't give a damn about the grad school, but I did study and teach at Harvard for three years. You can look it up in the CUE guide!

Also, you have a little punctuation error that makes it look as if I refer to MIT prof Nancy Hopkins by her first name. I've never met the woman, and since I talk about her being caricatured, it's unfortunate that I sound comfortable referring to a female professor I've never met as "Nancy." Not so.

Also, I can't believe you quoted me as saying that I find the New York Times Magazine "so dull."

Okay, so I did say that. And okay, so I do think the Times Mag is massively boring. But still...I'm trying to make a living here.

And finally, since we talked about this blog so much, couldn't you at least put in a hyperlink to it on the electronic version of the interview? Seems only logical.

There. Thanks to the rest of you for indulging that. And Sam, I enjoyed our conversation.  ¶ 8:36 AM 5 comments   

  Alan Dershowitz Catches a Coup You've got to give Alan Dershowitz credit: the man stays on message. And regarding the resignation of Lawrence Summers, his message is this: a "coup d'etat" by the "radical hard left" has toppled a visionary president who made the mistake of expressing "politically incorrect views."

Here's Dershowitz in the Washington Post: "One group of faculty managed a coup d'etat not only against Summers but against the whole Harvard community."

Here's Dershowitz in the Crimson: “I think this is an academic coup d’etat engineered by the hard left and stimulated by Summers’ politically-incorrect statements, but then joined by an assortment of others—including some who had been dismissed and disempowered by Summers, some who didn’t like his style, and a few well-intentioned people who didn’t understand the damage they were doing to the University.”

Here's the effect of Dershowitz's words as manifested in a Globe editorial: "Summers's departure raises fears that a small number of faculty from only one part of the university have staged a coup...."

And here is the headline for the editorial that Dershowitz, inbetween giving interviews to the Globe, etc., cranked out for the Globe:

Coup against Summers a dubious victory for the politically correct

First sentence: "A plurality of one faculty has brought about an academic coup d'etat against not only Harvard University president Lawrence Summers but also against the majority of students, faculty, and alumni."

Well, let's consider that opener, which is disingenuous from its first noun, "plurality."

If the FAS professors who opposed Summers were the architects of a coup, by definition they have to be a small group—that's what coups are, a takeover of power by a small group—and "plurality" usually suggests the largest of several groups, but one falling short of a majority. ("Bill Clinton won a plurality of the 1992 vote against George Bush and Ross Perot.")

But as Dershowitz surely knows, the bloc of professors aligned against Summers was a majority within FAS—if it were only a plurality, Summers would probably have taken his chances with that second vote of no-confidence.

It is, however, hard to argue for the existence of a coup when you have the majority of the university's largest faculty—and wealthiest school—in opposition to the president. Hence "plurality."

Dershowitz does not, however, hesitate to use the term "majority" when he refers to the allegedly pro-Summers opinion of students, faculty, and alumni.

How does he know this? Well, there's the Crimson poll of undergraduates, shaky though it may be. But about graduate students, Dershowitz has no idea. Faculty in other graduate schools? Ditto. One might expect that Dershowitz would know the pulse of the law school, but given the number of law school faculty who disagreed with Summers' inaction on the Solomon Amendment, it seems unlikely that HLS is a solid pro-Summers bloc. Alumni? Well, alumni giving is down about ten percent since Summers became president, and I've certainly spoken with quite a few of them who don't like Summers (particularly women). But maybe I've just happened to reach all those crazy radicals among the Harvard graduates working in law, business and finance here in New York City.

Let's face it: Dershowitz is simply making this stuff up.

Why, then, does he think that there's been a coup by the radical hard-left? What evidence does Dershowitz present for such a serious accusation? Let's look.

The Faculty of Arts and Sciences includes, in general, some of the most radical, hard-left elements within Harvard's diverse constituencies. And let there be no mistake about the origin of Summers's problem with that particular faculty: It started as a hard left-center conflict. Summers committed the cardinal sin against the academic hard left: He expressed politically incorrect views regarding gender, race, religion, sexual preference, and the military.

No evidence here, just a couple of canards. So let's dispense with them, shall we? (Won't take long.)

The first is that the Harvard faculty of arts and sciences has a "radical, hard-left"—sounds scary, doesn't it? Oooh!—constituency. It's true that there are a handful of left-wing professors within FAS. But in general, it's not a very politically active body, and it is hardly full of extremists, as Dershowitz claims.

The second myth is that Summers expressed politically incorrect views. No: Summers expressed stupid views. Economists are smarter than political scientists. Men are smarter than women. Seoul had a million child prostitutes.

The reason that Harvard faculty rejected these declarations is that, while couched as wisdom delivered from on high, they were uninformed, irresponsible, and beneath the level of intelligence the FAS faculty expects of the president. Not because they were politically incorrect.

In need of something to back up his smears, Dershowitz plays his trump card: "The original no-confidence motion contained an explanatory note that explicitly referenced 'Mr. Summers' apparently ongoing convictions about the capacities and rights not only of women but also of African-Americans, third-world nations, gay people, and colonized peoples.'"

Dershowitz concedes that this left-wing—for he's right, it was left-wing—language was deleted from the statement, but he implies that the omission was effected as a way of hiding the faculty's true agenda.

That is exactly wrong.

The reason the language, written by anthropologist Randy Matory, was deleted was because Summers' less ideological opponents believed that it would lose the day for them; in other words, that Matory's views were not representative of the faculty, but of Matory.

And, of course, they were right. The no-confidence vote passed because Summers' opponents believed that he was an incompetent leader, not because of some cloaked desire to stand up for third world nations and colonized people.

Dershowitz goes on to argue that Summers' opponents believe in free speech only for those who agree with them, but not for Larry Summers or his defenders. (It's a women-in-science controversy reference.) Their attitude, he proclaims, was "Free speech for me, but not for thee!"

As a reporter who's covered this story for years, I can tell you that this is an idiotic suggestion. It was not the faculty who stifled free speech, but the president. Larry Summers created a climate on campus in which members of the Harvard faculty and staff felt not just uncomfortable, but scared, to express their opinions; they feared professional and personal retribution. On February 20, 2004, the Crimson editorialized about this very phenomenon, writing: "As Summers has consolidated his hold on Harvard, his adminstration has demonstrated an unsettling penchant for secrecy.... Summers' tactics hint at contempt for students and faculty." In an interview with me, Crimson editor Kate Rakoczy noted that "the people who work for Larry are scared to death when the Crimson calls."

Larry Summers believed in free speech? Not for Cornel West, he didn't; he chastised West for the professor's political involvement. (And when asked by a member of the New York Times editorial board later to explain himself, Summers stated that West had "a sexual harrassment problem." But of course, as with so many of Summers' nastier remarks, that was supposed to be off the record.)

Larry Summers believed in free speech? Not for Zayed Yasin he didn't. Remember, this is the president who forbade anyone working for him to say a word in defense of the 2002 undergraduate commencement speaker who made the mistake of choosing a dumb title ("My American Jihad") for his otherwise praiseworthy talk. This is the president who never said a word to Yasin, one of Harvard's most upstanding students, after a national news organization falsely accused Yasin of supporting Hamas. Larry Summers let Zayed Yasin twist in the wind, and he did so because he did not want Yasin to express his views. Rather than reaching out to Yasin, Summers described him in semi-private conversations as a "little shit."

Larry Summers believed in free speech? Try telling that to the multitude of Harvard administrators who worried that the wrong remark might cost them their job...to all the professors who worried that they and their departments would be punished if they spoke to the press...to reporters who found his press office obfuscatory if not outright deceptive...to the deans of Harvard schools who dared to put out a press release without running it through Mass Hall first, to make sure that it contained language that made Larry Summers look good.

The irony is that, in fact, it's really Dershowitz who has the hidden agenda here; there's a subtext to his argument. Alan Dershowitz almost surely believes—and implicitly suggests—that the core group of Larry Summers' opponents is anti-Semitic and that their opposition to Summers is based on the fact that Summers is Jewish.

While Dershowitz may have many reasons for supporting Summers, judging by what he has said in public, Summers' opposition to anti-Semitism is paramount among them. The law school professor never spoke out for Summers more vigorously than he did during the debate over the Morning Prayers anti-Semitism talk. Similarly, he supported Summers' opposition to a speech by anti-Semitic poet Tom Paulin. (By contrast, he publicly broke with Summers when the president declined to stand up for gays in the Solomon Amendment debate.)

There's certainly nothing wrong with Dershowitz agreeing with and standing up for Summers on this issue. But when it informs his description of the "radical hard-left"—when, in this context, and for those who know the back story, Dershowitz is clearly using code words for anti-Semitic—it is deeply wrong for him to talk about a secretive minority of the faculty staging a coup d'etat.

Dershowitz closes by writing, "Now that this plurality of one faculty has succeeded in ousting the president, the most radical elements of Harvard will be emboldened to seek to mold all of Harvard in its image. If they succeed, Harvard will become a less diverse and less interesting institution of learning governed by political-correctness cops of the hard left."

I wonder: If there really is a "political correctness cop" in this discussion, is it faculty members of all different politics and temperaments who opposed Larry Summers, or is it Alan Dershowitz?






  ¶ 7:40 AM 4 comments   

  Brace Yourself: Bad Journalism Alert I spent a lot of time on the phone today with reporters from various news organizations—quite large ones, actually—who suddenly had to whip up a report on Larry Summers and didn't have the faintest idea what was going on at Harvard. I tried to be fair and balanced, blah-blah-blah, but the exercise was a test of patience, filled with questions such as, "What is this curricular review thing again?", "How do you spell 'Schleifer?"—that's a tough one, actually—and "JFK did go to Harvard, right?"

The point is, there are a lot of reporters that haven't been paying attention to what's going on at Harvard who are now rushing to get up to speed, and invariably, the results won't be pretty.

Case in point: Lois Romano's report in the Washington Post, which clearly gives the impression that the inmates are running the asylum and Larry Summers been done wrong.

The first two grafs are boilerplate factual stuff. Romano then writes in her third graf, "Summers's announcement comes after several weeks of inflamed rhetoric by his opponents on the faculty."

Inflamed rhetoric? Oooh—sounds dramatic. Would be nice if she quoted some. But perhaps that is too much to ask. Better just to categorize it.

Anyway, speaking of inflamed rhetoric, Romano then goes on to quote Alan Dershowitz, who gives no indication of knowing about what is going on at Harvard College and seems to care about it even less. But when you have no idea what's going on at Harvard and you need a quote fast, Alan Dershowitz is your man.

Here's Romano: "It's a real tragedy for Harvard," said Alan Dershowitz, law professor of long-standing at Harvard and a Summers supporter. "It says that one group of faculty managed a coup d'etat not only against Summers but against the whole Harvard community. He is widely supported among students and in the graduate schools."

A real tragedy. A coup d'etat against the whole Harvard community.

Nope. No inflamed rhetoric there.

Meanwhile, an assertion—totally unsupported—that Summers has wide support among the graduate schools. Maybe Dershowitz is right, maybe Summers did. But Romano is wrong to just let him throw that out there without any context.

And then inevitably Romano quotes that silly Crimson poll—you knew this was coming—without any discussion of its methodological problems or any context to the effect that most undergraduates have no idea and really don't care about what's going on with the Harvard administration.

In the next-to-last paragraph of the story, Romano then quotes an anonymous Summers critic who says, "This man could never get over not being the smartest man in the room. This is Harvard--we all have to get used to it."

With all the people who have eloquently gone on the record talking about their criticism of Summers—Peter Ellison, anyone?—this slightly muddled quote, buried at the end of her story, is the best Romano can do?

And then, the final insult. Romano writes: "Although Summers's supporters remained steadfast, sources say that some began to feel that his presence was disruptive and distracting to the school."

Summers' supporters remained steadfast? I'm sorry, but I think that is objectively wrong. Dershowitz did, true. So did Weiss and Mansfield. But Gergen, Pinker, Katz, Thernstrom and others all backed away from Summers. One reason the second vote did not take place is because Summers supporters were not remaining steadfast.

Romano's piece is just sloppy, rushed journalism. It won't be the last.

I mean, my gosh, if reporters want the real story, all they have to do is read this blog.....  ¶ 10:06 PM 2 comments   

  Now That's Ironic The time on Larry Summers' e-mail resignation: 1:14.  ¶ 1:42 PM 6 comments   

  The Resignation—1:14 PM, 2/21/06 Dear Members of the Harvard Community,

I write to let you know that, after considerable reflection, I have notified the Harvard Corporation that I will resign as President of the University as of June 30, 2006. I will always be grateful for the opportunity to have served Harvard in this role, and I will treasure the continuing friendship and support of so many exceptional colleagues and students at Harvard.

Below are links to my letter to the community, as well as a letter from the members of the Corporation and a related news release.

Sincerely,

Larry Summers


http://www.news.harvard.edu/gazette/daily/2006/02/21-summers.html

http://www.president.harvard.edu/speeches/2006/0221_summers.html

http://www.news.harvard.edu/gazette/daily/2006/02/21-board.pdf  ¶ 1:39 PM 6 comments   

  The Journal Article For you fellow non-subscribers, here it is:

Summers to Quit Harvard Presidency
By DANIEL GOLDEN and ZACHARY M. SEWARD
February 21, 2006; Page A3
Lawrence H. Summers, losing a power struggle with faculty after a turbulent five years as president of Harvard University, is expected to resign this week.

Two people familiar with the situation said last night that the former U.S. Treasury secretary is expected to announce his resignation in advance of a faculty vote a week from today on a motion of no confidence in his leadership. It's unclear what plan Harvard may have for naming a successor or when Mr. Summers's resignation will take effect.


Backing for Mr. Summers from Harvard's seven-member governing board, known as the Corporation, has eroded in recent weeks in the face of renewed criticism from many arts and sciences faculty members, the people familiar with the matter said. Former U.S. Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin, a Corporation member who pushed for Mr. Summers's appointment in 2001, remains a supporter and was making calls on his behalf to at least one key Harvard official last week, one person familiar with the situation said. Several board members, including former Duke University president Nannerl Keohane and Urban Institute president Robert Reischauer, have been interviewing deans, faculty members and alumni in recent weeks about Mr. Summers's performance.

Mr. Summers and Corporation members couldn't be reached for comment. A Harvard spokesman declined to comment.

Mr. Summers's supporters, and even some of his detractors, say they are worried it will be difficult for Harvard to find a strong successor now that the faculty has demonstrated its clout. His propensity for controversial comments on educational and national issues was regarded by admirers as a welcome change from other college presidents who devote themselves primarily to fund raising. His resignation could renew concerns about whether presidents of elite universities can use their "bully pulpit" as they once did to express opinions on vital issues without risking their positions.

Mr. Summers's resignation would end the shortest stint of any Harvard president since Cornelius Felton died in 1862 after two years in office. The Corporation selected Mr. Summers, a renowned economist, as a strong leader who would assert his authority over entrenched fiefdoms. His achievements include establishing an institute on stem-cell research, increasing faculty size and expanding Harvard's campus.

However, a number of his initiatives, including curriculum reform, have bogged down. His brusque management style and sometimes outspoken views have offended faculty members and led to turnover among deans.

Arts and sciences faculty members voted no confidence in Mr. Summers last year after he gave a talk suggesting that innate gender differences might account for the relative scarcity of women with high-level academic careers in science and math. Faculty critics this year began assailing him on matters varying from the resignation of a key dean to the lack of any university discipline meted out to economics professor Andrei Shleifer, a close friend of the president. Last year, Harvard and Mr. Shleifer settled a civil suit brought by the federal government, stemming from allegations that he had violated conflict-of-interest rules by investing in financial markets in Russia while heading a foreign-aid program there.>>

  ¶ 11:10 AM 11 comments   

  Summers' Resignation: Thoughts Underneath—far, far underneath—the pomp and glitter of [2004] commencement, currents of unhappiness were making their way through the university. The president's critics would have said that it was his intangible changes that mattered the most. That he was corrupting the university with values and priorities better suited to the world of politics and commerce. That, instead of free speech and vigorous debate—instead of veritas—the president of Harvard cared only about image, public relations, spin control. And that the thing they cherished most about Harvard—that in a world of never-ending competition and conflict, the university aspired to something higher, something more timeless—was rapidly vanishing. Like an extinct species, once gone, that precious quality would be gone forever. Those professors would either have to live in a world of Larry Summers' creation, or go elsewhere. But if Harvard couldn't remain an ivory tower, in the best, most optimistic sense of the phrase, what university could?

—Harvard Rules, page 343  ¶ 9:22 AM 6 comments   

  Yup, He's Outta There Harvard Magazine has this on its website this morning: Tuesday morning, February 21, the Journal featured on page 3 a report, “Summers to Quit Harvard Presidency.”

The Harvard website, meanwhile, has a scintillating story about the "Harvard State Fair," during which "students including Sara O'Rourke '09 were challenged to try their hand at traditional farm chores such as milking."

Meanwhile, here's a telling sign of how Harvard has fallen: I hear through the grapevine that one network nightly news show is planning to do a "funny" story about the craziness in Cambridge.

This resignation could not have come any later.  ¶ 9:11 AM 0 comments   

  It's Over The Wall Street Journal is reporting as of 4:02 AM that Larry Summers will resign in advance of next Tuesday's faculty meeting.

The Journal's piece is subscriber-only, but the Crimson summarizes it here.

Actually, there's basically nothing to summarize, except that the Journal article—co-bylined by Dan Golden and former Crimson managing editor Zach Seward—cites two anonymous sources saying that Summers is going to resign.

The Journal does get the interesting bit of news that Bob Rubin has called at least one university official the past week urging him to support Summers.

If Summers resigns, how long will it be before Rubin too has to leave?  ¶ 4:23 AM 6 comments   

  I'm A-Polled I read the Crimson this morning with dread. No, not because I saw some new scandal related to the Summers presidency. No new Cornel West scandal, no new anti-Semitism speech scandal, no new firing of (fill in the blank) scandal, no new AIDS scandal, no new Andrei Shleifer scandal, no new fundraising scandal, no new women-in-science scandal.

I read the Crimson because the Crimson did a poll, and it is dumb, and because it says that students are pro-Summers by a ratio of 3:1, it is sure to be used as evidence of the faculty's foolishness by right-wingers everywhere who, without having a clue as to what is going on at Harvard, can now point to the Crimson's poll and say how stupid and wacko the faculty is.

And sure enough, here comes Andrew Sullivan, now blogging for Time, who writes: "The p.c. left on the faculty may despise Larry Summers, but a new poll shows that the students are fine with him."

(Sullivan, by the way, did his dissertation under Summers supporter Harvey Mansfield.)

I wonder what "p.c. left" Sullivan is referring to? It'd be nice if he could name a name. Except that—oh!—that might undermine his argument.

But that's what a bad poll will do. Let's look at why it's bad.

The Crimson e-mailed 840 students asking them various questions about Summers. The results? "Just 19 percent of undergraduates in the survey said that Summers should resign, while about 57 percent said he should not."

But consider the techniques of the poll. We don't actually know how these 840 students were chosen or whether they were generally representative of the student body. How many were men? How many were science majors?

Of the 840 people surveyed, about half—424 people—responded.

More than half of the respondents were freshmen.

Which means a) that half of the people who answered this poll have absolutely no idea what is going on, but answered it anyway. And b) as few as students from each class other than first-years answered this poll.

I'm not an expert on polling, but right away, that raises some issues. Freshmen, for one thing, are surely less likely to want Summers to resign, since, barely cognizant of Summers' history at Harvard, they wouldn't see much of a reason for him to.

I see on the message boards some posters have raised the issue of respondent bias—whether strong Summers supporters are more likely to be represented in the pool of respondents, if most students don't have particularly strong feelings about Summers (as might be expected, given their level of contact with/knowledge of him).

So...we don't know how the respondents were selected, we don't know the exact breakdown by class, we know that more men responded than women—who, given the women-in-science speech, are less likely than men to be strong Summers supporters—and we know that the poll is dominated by freshmen.

All told, sounds like a poll that probably shouldn't be trusted. I expect it's true that Summers has more support among students than among faculty. But I also expect that we're going to hear this 3:1 ratio tossed around a lot in the next few weeks.

I hear, for example, that the Boston Globe is working on a story about student opinion regarding Larry Summers....  ¶ 8:05 PM 7 comments   

  Of Larry and Google I neglected to mention one point about Marcella Bombardieri's piece that struck me.

Bombardieri quotes an alum named Jack Corrigan who supports Summers and lists some of his accomplishments—the stem cell institute, free tuition for low-income families, and "a project with Google to digitize Harvard's library."

Couple thoughts about that last.

First of all, that initiative was supposed to be the doing of Harvard library director Sidney Verba. Now I guess we know who really made it happen.

Is it good for Harvard? Not particularly. Is it good for Google? Yes, incredibly good, to have Harvard sign on to a project that is hugely controversial, because many writers see it as the biggest threat to copyright protection in history.

So why would Summers okay the deal? (Or, perhaps, pressure Verba to okay it?) Could it have been because his former chief of staff at the Treasury Department, Sheryl Sandberg....

...is now a vice-president at Google, and happened to meet with Summers the same day she met with Sidney Verba? In another context, that would be called lobbying. But it's not as if Larry Summers ever spent any time in Washington.

Anyway, I'm sure the two visits were entirely coincidental....still, Mr. Corrigan, you might want to omit that particular "accomplishment" from your roster.

(It is interesting, though—that's such an odd thing for an alum to emphasize, it feels like a talking point....)  ¶ 7:49 PM 3 comments   

  The Allies Buckle Under Pressure Marcella Bombardieri has a solid piece in the Globe about Summers' allies starting to lose faith that the president can govern.

In the second graf of the piece, Bombardieri rightly puts her strongest quote:

''I'm a little sad and a little nervous," said Larry Katz, an economics professor and a friend of Summers. ''Here is someone I think is a brilliant scholar, and a person of great skill and integrity, but he seems to have failed to connect with so many other bright scholars on campus."

Asked if Summers could still govern successfully, Katz said, ''I think it's unclear. Everyone has to think about what's in the best interest of the university, not the specific interests of any one person."

If that's the strongest answer Katz can give—"everyone has to think about what's in the best interest of the university"—then Summers truly is in freefall.

David Gergen—surprise—backpedals away from Summers as well. Bombardieri writes that he "stressed that he didn't know the full story behind the grievances of Summers's critics."

(If that's the case, then why was he such a steadfast Summers supporter for so long?)

The Corporation ''is going to have to consider its fiduciary responsibility, to consider what's in the best interests of Harvard," Gergen added.

In other words—Larry Summers is no longer in the best interests of Harvard.

Steve Pinker adds that Summers has made it hard for his defenders to defend him by not sticking up for himself. For example, the curricular review suffered from Summers' withdrawal and a subsequent lack of "vision," Pinker argues. Given that the review was led by Summers for three years before Summers exited from it, and it was a disaster throughout, this remark would fall under the category of historical revisionism.

The 2/28 vote of no-confidence will never happen. (If it does, every member of the Corporation should instantly proffer his or her resignation.)

We are in the endgame now.  ¶ 7:30 PM 0 comments   

  Larry Summers on the Slopes As mentioned below, Larry Summers is in Utah skiing this holiday weekend.

Doesn't much sound like him, does it? So let's consider what this really means. Possibilities include:

1) This ski weekend was long-planned and Summers saw no point in canceling it.

2) Summers is under a lot of pressure and hastily decided to get away from campus. Which would be understandable.

3) Summers is pulling a Washington move, trying to look relaxed and above the fray by going on vacation.

4) Summers is giving Harvard a raised middle finger to the effect of, "Do what you want, I'm outta here."

Option #1 is what Summers' apologists John Longbrake and Steve Hyman are selling. That argument is complicated by the fact that Summers blew off a meeting with the Institute of Politics fellows and an announcement with the mayor of Boston regarding Allston developments.

The IOP meeting suggests that Mass Hall is really, really screwed up right now. These people can not get their stories straight.

According to one IOP fellow who e-mailed the Crimson, "We were told he had a meeting that ran long."

Which turned out to mean that Summers had already gone skiing. (Evidence of option #4, to my mind.) Which means that someone just lied to the IOP.

The existence of that excuse does suggest that Summers was planning on going to the meeting until he decided to go skiing. (Options 2, 3 and 4.)

If the ski trip was long-planned, why was the IOP meeting on Summers' schedule at all?

“I made the mistake,” Summers' spokesman John Longbrake told the Crimson.

Huh. So the president's press secretary is also his scheduler? I don't think so.

Longbrake needs to be very careful lest he join the long list of people whose integrity and career have suffered after close professional association with Larry Summers. He's clearly falling on his sword , trying to take responsibility for Summers' apparently last-minute decision to blow off the K-School meeting by claiming it was a scheduling snafu.

Longbrake has had good relations with the press by trying to be forthcoming and not trying to spin the unspinnable, as his predecessor, Lucie McNeil, did. (McNeil's once-promising career: severely damaged by working for Summers.)

Don't ruin it now, John. When this mess is all over, no one's going to remember that you were loyal to Summers—except, perhaps, the people who don't like him—and you'll have to live with the fact that you compromised yourself.

Steve Hyman, who says that Summers was not at the Allston event because the timing of it was dictated by Mayor Tom Menino's schedule, is too far gone to be saved. That excuse is laughable—not least because Summers and Menino don't much care for each other, and Harvard wouldn't want to snub the mayor by, say, calling him up and saying that Larry Summers can't come to a joint announcement because he's in Utah skiing.

A year ago, Summers checked out of the curricular review. Is he now doing the same with Allston?

More evidence of option #4...

Which, don't get me wrong, is far from a sign that Summers plans to resign. More likely he's daring Harvard to fire him..... Does Summers have something on members of the Corporation? Something that he's threatening to leak, if he's not happy with the outcome of this controversy?  ¶ 10:15 AM 18 comments   

  Happy Presidents' Day Well, maybe not for Harvard president Lawrence Summers. While he was off in Utah skiing—more on that later—the big three of relevant newspapers discovered that the Corporation is alive! Yes! Alive, I say!

Daniel Golden in the Wall Street Journal was the first to report that members of the Corporation have been engaging professors in conversation about possible scenarios involving a Summers resignation.

(Golden is an aggressive reporter with a nose for news; it is not good news for Larry Summers that he is now working this story.)

On the 19th, Marcella Bombardieri at the Globe weighed in with a piece titled "Harvard board said to weigh Summers's fate."

(Can we please have all newspaper style desks agree to ban the "s's" formulation? It's archaic and ugly—just try to pronounce it. "Summers' fate" is just fine.)

Over at the Times, Alan Finder produces the weakest story of the bunch, "Board Said to Be Seeking Faculty Views on Harvard President." His piece appears to be dependent upon a single anonymous source.

Online, insidehighered.com weighs in with a round-up of its own.

A few thoughts on what we can glean from these collected pieces.

The active board members are Nan Keohane and Robert Reischauer; treasurer James Rothenberg also gets a mention. Jamie Houghton is reportedly engaged, but not as visibly. Robert Rubin is nowhere to be seen. Patricia King is not yet a member of the Corporation.

Isn't it interesting that the Corporation members who seem most concerned about the future of Harvard are the ones who happen to be academics, rather than businessmen?

So...what does it mean that they are talking with professors? It could mean very little; if the Corporation were not so insanely secretive, one would think, "Well, of course they're talking with the faculty? How could they not?" But given the traditional aloofness of the Corporation, the mere fact that they are talking with the faculty is news.

If the leaks were coming from around the Corporation, I'd say that the Corporation itself was trying to ramp up the pressure on Summers. But they don't seem to be.

There's another way in which these conversations seem important; they didn't take place a year ago. At least, not in the same manner, a real listening process. Suggesting that the Corporation is taking this most recent uproar more seriously than it did last year's, and realizes that it can't just sit back and do nothing—again.

A couple of thoughts on Bob Rubin.

His silence—his absence—are provocative. Is he such a stalward ally of Summers' that he is derelect in his responsiblities to Harvard? That's a possibility.

It's also possible that any conversations by Rubin, who was essential to Summers' becoming president, would be instantly leaked and parsed for signs of what Summers' reportedly most loyal supporter is really thinking. Even the mere existence of such conversations would be taken as an ominous sign for Summers.

I can't help but thinking that Rubin will have to play an important part in this before it's all over.

Two guesses:

1) When the Corporation sends an emissary to Summers to say, "Larry, it's time to go," it will be Bob Rubin.

2) It will also be Bob Rubin who will set up Larry Summers with a lucrative Wall Street job, announced a month or so after his resignation, that will ease the sting for Summers. The Harvard president is, by most standards, a rich man...but compared to what he could be making in Manhattan, he's a pauper. Spinning his departure as a defeat by the radical left-wing nuts of academia, Summers will become a hero on the Street, where his arrogance will once again be mistaken for brilliance and his salary will jump by a factor of 25 to 50.

The question is, what happens to Lisa New? When Summers moves to New York, will she resign her Harvard tenure? Thus becoming yet another person closely associated with Summers whose professional career has suffered as a result? Or can Bob Rubin finagle her a position at Columbia—doubtful, as Columbia president Lee Bollinger has no love for Summers, or Harvard, which