In Media Debacle, Some See Lessons for New President

The year ended with a bang for University President Lawrence H. Summers.

After six months of relatively peaceful adjustment and agenda–setting, the first-year president finds himself at the center of a full-blown crisis.

With a department teetering on the verge of revolt and national figures joining the fray, the controversy over Afro-American studies threatens to snowball into a more broadly based criticism of Summers’ tenure as president.

There are signs that Summers still has a chance to escape disaster. As time passes, rhetoric softens, and the odds that the Afro-American studies professors will actually leave dwindles. Less clear, though, are the lessons Summers takes away from this very public battle.

Though Summers won’t comment specifically on the source of ongoing conflict with Fletcher University Professor Cornel R. West ’74 and other members of the Afro-American studies department, he continues to repeat its root is a “misunderstanding.”

But some who have worked closely with Summers say it was a misunderstanding waiting to happen.

Devil’s Advocate

Summers’ defenders call his style intellectually assertive. Overly aggressive, egotistical and bordering on disrespectful, however, is how Summers’ detractors characterize it.

Throughout his career, this style has been both his greatest strength and his greatest weakness. A number of University and Faculty sources point to this personality as a key factor in triggering controversy once again.

In college, Summers was a star debater and developed an obsessive fondness for playing devil’s advocate. The style suited the young academic, who rose rapidly through the ranks of Harvard’s Faculty.

His startling ascent also won him accolades beyond Harvard. When he graduated into the world of Washington policy-making, his personality became more of a hindrance.

A firebrand at times, Summers didn’t hesitate to speak his mind—sometimes at the cost of alienating supporters. He had a reputation for being tactless. While his analysis was always prescient, colleagues say, it was often ruthless.

In considering Summers to be the University’s 27th president, Harvard’s search committee paid close attention to the question of his style. The powerful group was ultimately reassured on that point by Summers’ predecessor, former Treasury Secretary Robert E. Rubin ’60, who told them that his protege was a mellowed man.

Many professors were excited to bring the young, assertive Summers back to Harvard.

But colleagues and friends admitted that he was likely to—in the words of one friend—“ruffle a few feathers.” Some warned that further refinement was probably in order.

“In government, people are more willing to sacrifice egos to do something right,” one friend said last spring. With his move to the administration of notoriously touchy faculty in already established fiefdoms, Summers was going to have to watch himself more closely, the friend predicted.

Since taking over in July, Summers has framed public statements cautiously.

But interviews with faculty members and administrators indicate, Summers has been far more aggressive in private.

Summers runs meetings like dissertation hearings, a dean said. Always playing the devil’s advocate, Summers challenges every statement whether he agrees with it or not, another administrator said. He is “blunt...less than diplomatic, especially in private,” another said.

The current controversy centers on a number of private meetings between Summers and members of the Afro-American studies department. Summers and West met. West came out of that meeting upset.

In the days since the story broke, senior black Faculty members have been quoted in the Boston Globe calling Summers a “bull in a china shop.”

Indeed, as one administrator said, Summers made his points with West “too clearly and heavily, as is his style.”

It was only the venue and the topic of this first fumble that several colleagues found surprising.

“In Washington, senators are barons, but here the barons are the faculty,” one colleague said.

Circumstances surrounding Summers’ dispute with the Afro-American Studies professors were only the proverbial straw on the camel’s back.

Not Neil

But whatever can be said about the president’s style, the natural contrast between Summers and his predecessor, the soft-spoken Neil L. Rudenstine, set up inevitable oppositions.

The nature of Rudenstine’s relationship with the Afro-American department meant that Summers started out on shaky ground.

When Rudenstine arrived at Harvard the Afro-American studies department had one white professor. Rudenstine is credited with building the department into a national powerhouse, and personally recruited many of the department’s senior Faculty.

The department is one of Rudenstine’s crowning achievements.

By all accounts, Rudenstine had a special relationship with the department. As a top curricular priority, the department had access—some claim privilege.

This situation put Summers in a precarious position.

When Summers outlined his priorities in his October installation speech, Afro-American studies was not mentioned. Summers now avows full commitment to the department, pledging to fight to keep senior department members.

But according to one administrator, Summers originally hoped to distinguish himself from his predecessor.

“[Summers] wanted to make clear that [Afro-American studies department members] would be treated like others,” one administrator said, meaning an end “to special treatment that Rudenstine gave them.”

The task was one that was not likely to win Summers the affection Rudenstine enjoyed. Now, as a result of making his point too forcefully, Summers may have made enemies.

The Moves Make The Man

Summers is different from Rudenstine on yet another crucial count: from the get-go, he has outlined goals that, while ambitious, are fraught with controversy.

Some say Summers has already proved himself a stronger president than Rudenstine.

One administrator lauds Summers for forcing people to think about things they might not want to be thinking about.

Summers has stuck stubbornly to the themes mentioned in his installation speech.

Audiences unreceptive to his mantra of change haven’t daunted him. The friction with Afro-American studies is only the most visible of the disputes this fall.

Rudenstine asked the law school what they thought of a move to University land in Allston. They wanted to stay put. When Summers arrived, he told them they would have to at least consider it.

Summers’ allies point out that Summers seems to have won this first skirmish—the law school has convened a committee to consider the unthinkable: a move to Allston.

Summers has been as dogged about his other priorities. Faculty members speculate that any criticism of West for absenteeism stems from Summers’ pledge to bring senior faculty into closer interaction with undergraduates.

Snowball

Summers’ honeymoon—if there was one—ended several days ago when the story broke. In the days following, it has snowballed. Now Latino professors, quoted in the Boston Globe, are saying they feel Summers has given their calls for a center short shrift. One administrator speculated that there may be a bandwagon effect.

In response to the Afro-American studies conflict, the president has moved from issuing vague responses on demand through a spokesperson, to a full-fledged personal statement posted for all to see on his web site.

But he hasn’t yet shown what many are waiting to see: some sign that the next time around, he will be more aware of the effect of his ambitious ideas and his aggressive voice.

—Staff writer David H. Gellis can be reached at gellis@fas.harvard.edu