Obstacle to Reform

SUCH high hopes. When Derek Curtis Bok was named Harvard's 25th president in 1971, many hoped for the conciliator to transform the University. The New York Times called Bok "symbolic of the beginning of a new era," and even we called him the "ideal choice" for the job.

To be sure, Bok was a marked improvement over his predecessor, Nathan M. Pusey '28. Pusey left Harvard a controversial and highly unpopular president, notorious for calling in the police to break up a 1969 takeover of University Hall.

Bok, in contrast, was known as "a good guy" during his days as Law School dean. When protesters took over his offices, he bought them donuts and coffee and chatted about reform. Rumors had it that he had even opposed Pusey's decision to call in the cops.

As president, Bok did much of the same--working hard to maintain the appearance of conciliation and open-mindedness. During the scores of divestment protests that dotted his two decades, Bok usually took the time to hear what activists had to say. On the national scene, Bok has more effectively spoken out for the values for which he was originally lauded. But the initial good feeling surrounding the Bok appointment proved unfounded. His closed, unreceptive management style proved a more subtle form of conservatism than Pusey's "call in the cops" approach.

BOK proved a strong spokesperson on issues facing American higher education. Always the "good liberal" we had hoped he would be, Bok frequently journeyed to Washington to fight federal cutbacks in financial aid. He proved a worthy foe to the likes of former Education Secretary William J. Bennett and University of Chicago Professor Allan D. Bloom, defending America's colleges and universities from their conservative attacks. His annual reports on the state of Harvard often proved to be valuable tools for other educators around the country.

Bok also presided over the implementation of the Core Curriculum, which superceded the chaotic General Education requirements. Under Bok's tenure--but not necessarily because of Bok--the diversity of the student body also increased dramatically. Although the College's student body is still concentrated among the elite, it is nonetheless one of the most diverse of any private institution in the country.

True to expectation, Bok leaves Harvard a stronger and wealthier institution than when he came to it. Bok restored stability to a campus ripped apart by the '60s, overseeing unprecedented expansion of facilities and programs such as the creation of the John F. Kennedy School of Government. In 20 years, Bok increased the endowment five-fold to about $5 billion--the highest by far of any institution of higher education in the world.

BUT this expansive growth has come with heavy costs--costs Bok did far too little to mitigate. The president has overseen the birth of Harvard, Inc., a massive corporate empire that does not fully weigh the ethical implications of its actions. On investment policy, on some academic questions, in the interaction with students, Bok has performed more like a stability-minded CEO than an enlightened scholarly leader.

While Bok may have appeared to be open-minded, he rarely took the viewpoints of students and alumni activists seriously when governing the University. Bok heard the protesters, but he never really listened to what they said.

Instead, Bok proceeded, year by year, to make Harvard a less open institution. Voices from the outside--especially students--still have no say in the governance of the University; the seven-member Corporation is still the ultra-secret governing board it was 20 years ago. Even when change was urged from the inside, the University under Bok found a way to subvert it. When activists on the Board of Overseers tried to clean up Harvard's investment portfolio, Bok and other administrators stamped out the dissent. And when Dean of the Faculty A. Michael Spence tried to begin discussion of ways of promoting more junior faculty, Bok proved an enemy in making the proposals reality.

As a result, Harvard still has investments in South Africa. Harvard still tenures few faculty from the inside. And Harvard is still a bastion of white male aristocracy--especially in its faculty ranks.

OF COURSE, institutional inertia can be tough to fight, especially at Harvard. Almost without exception, Bok was as much the symbol of conservatism as the agent.

Yet we cannot help but think that if Bok were truly committed to the values he publicly espoused--diversity and openness--he could done more to force real change at the University. The problem, it seems, was one of priorities. Bok professed to be committed to the values we cherish. But he was more committed to many others. To Bok, change was bad if it he saw it as challenging tradition or putting ethical concerns before financial viability--and that's usually how he saw it.

Perhaps no issue better symbolized Bok's change of priorities than his stance on the battle for unionization at Harvard. As a labor law professor at the Law School, Bok was firmly committed to the cause of organized labor and supported unions in both his writings and speeches. When he became president of the University, however, he threw every obstacle he could in the way of the unionization of Harvard's clerical and technical workers.

No doubt the job of presidency was demanding, and Bok felt a strong obligation to project unchanged the institution that had made him its leader. Nonetheless, Bok's choice of priorities reflect a real insensitivity--and maybe even neglect--of the values for which he said Harvard should stand.

THE Derek Bok appointed to succeed Pusey in 1971 was a good man with the right values. The Derek Bok who announced his resignation last week is not the same man.

With each year in office, Bok has grown more conservative, and more willing to sacrifice crucial values for the sake of tradition or financial success. Ultimately, Bok became an actual obstacle to reform, and he leaves Harvard much the same closed institution it was 20 years ago.

Bok will no doubt be remembered for his contributions to Harvard and the world of higher education, and we do not mean to take those away from him. In fact, we hope that after he leaves the presidency, the old Bok will return, and use his new platform to champion the causes he championed as a "good liberal."

But for today, we cannot overlook Bok's shortcomings as president. His decision to leave was one of the best moves he has made in quite some time.