No Apology Needed

To the editors:

While on New Year’s holiday in Japan I read of the fracas around Lawrence Summers and Cornel West and the broader issue of race relations at Harvard. That the University should have to make international news in this way was disconcerting to me.

Regional or ethnic studies are fruitful fields, worthy of support; but I am dismayed by the conduct of those—inside Harvard and out—who are trying to enforce favoritism on behalf of Afro-American studies.

If Summers gave West a dressing-down, what of it? It’s the place of a university president—as of any manager—to do that sometimes. And no one is exempt from such a challenge, even a sharply worded one; it’s simply a part of life. Those who cried “racism” and brought Jesse Jackson and others into the fray acted, I thought, in a cowardly as well as a bullying fashion.

Harvard has few, if any, apologies to make regarding minority or underprivileged groups. The reforms of President Charles W. Eliot, Class of 1853, a century ago, compellingly placed Harvard in the vanguard of education by opening the University to children of immigrant families, and that tradition is very much alive. Regarding faculty in Afro-American studies, Summers stated that Harvard “will compete vigorously to make [itself] an attractive environment.” I certainly hope none of the professors who promoted this ridiculous controversy gets rewarded with a raise.

David Landau ’72

Jan. 9, 2002

The writer was managing editor of The Crimson in 1971-2.