President’s style gives conservatives hope

When Harvard’s presidential search committee chose Lawrence H. Summers—fresh from the ranks of partisan politics—as president last spring, they took a risk that they might be inviting politics into Mass. Hall.

Indeed, over the past eight months the new president has graced many a political column. But, in an odd twist for the Clinton appointee, Summers has found favor—and not disparagement—with columnists from the Right.

While Summers was making headlines for his calls for greater patriotism in academia and his spat with Fletcher University Professor Cornel West ’71, conservative editorial pages and columnists praised signs that he was the leader who could provide a needed lesson to out- of-touch, politically correct and knee-jerkingly liberal Harvard.

In October the conservative Wall Street Journal editorialized that a speech Summers gave criticizing universities’ ingrained skepticism of the military was commendable—a gutsy “profile in courage.”

Later, when Summers hinted at reconsideration of the University’s exclusionary policies towards the Reserve Officer Training Corp (ROTC), more conservatives joined the Summers bandwagon.

The Boston Herald praised Summers’ “instincts” on the issue, and held out hope that Summers was more open to revising the ROTC policies than Harvard’s liberal Faculty.

Finally, with the controversy between West and Summers, conservatives expressed their hopes even more vocally. Seeing a disregard for political correctness in Summers’ apparent willingness to take on the star black professor and a hint of ambivalence in his attitude towards affirmative action, the Right delighted that they had an ally in Mass. Hall.

The National Review wrote that Summers’ actions meant that “the intellectual Potemkin Village that three decades of political correctness has built might be exposed for the rickety stage prop it is.”

Many of these conservatives labeled Summers’ subsequent fence-mending efforts a cave-in to the very forces of political correctness that they hoped he was bucking. Still the fact that Summers could be a conservative darling for even a moment was surprising for a man who was once a leader in the Clinton administration and is now Harvard’s president.

Those reading such commentaries were invariably left wondering what had brought together such strange bedfellows. Was Larry Summers really a closet conservative?

Friends and colleagues say that this is impossible. They say that the Right may have come down with a case of wishful thinking—molding Summers’ actions to make for compelling copy and to argue their own case about what’s wrong with Harvard.

Still, friends’ descriptions of Summers may offer at least some hope for conservative observers.

A Leftward Lean

As President Clinton’s Treasury Secretary, Summers was more often a whipping post for the Right than its ally.

Summers was excoriated when as Deputy Secretary he slipped up and said that those favoring a repeal of the estate tax were selfish. A strong push for new regulation on corporate tax shelters went against the hopes of the business community. And as a chief architect of the administration’s 1995 bailout Mexico’s failing economy, Summers was often a lightening rod for criticism.

On social issues, friends and colleagues say Summers is solidly progressive. Summers inherited from his parents—two liberal economists—a faith in the beneficial power of government, especially with regard to helping the poor.

It was only on fiscal matters that Summers’ brand of liberalism took on more centrist tones.

Friends say he was a prototypical “New Democrat,” melding fiscal discipline with typical liberal goals.

“I think that he is a centrist Democrat who combines a market approach and a rigorous economic skepticism with essentially progressive beliefs,” says Gene Sperling, former director of the National Economic Council.

Summers’ professional pedigree shows signs of this centrist bent.

Trained under Baker Professor of Economics Martin S. Feldstein ’61, Summers adopted many of his market-oriented approaches. But Summers did not fully embrace Feldstein’s views—particularly recoiling from Reaganesque supply-side policies.

Summers’ perspective ultimately was deemed liberal enough to join the Dukakis campaign for President as a top economic advisor.

At the Treasury Department, Summers found himself at the center of a centrist administration, preaching the gospel of balanced budgets while pointing to the benefits of government action where it would be effective.

Summers came to Harvard with the scars of a veteran of the administration that conservatives loved to hate and solidly progressive credentials. His centrist leanings were largely unrelated to the conservative critiques of Harvard.

Wishful Thinking

Former and current colleagues say that the hopeful voices from the Right misread Summers’ moves.

Summers’ statements on the value of patriotism were unambiguous, and when pushed for further comment, he reiterates that he felt there was a need to mend a gap between “Eastern coastal elites” and the rest of the country.

But still, his speech urging greater patriotism in acedemia also included a shot at conservatives. Summers criticized those conservatives who argue against the value of government.

On revising the University’s relationship with ROTC, Faculty observers stressed that conservatives may have read Summers statements too definitively.

They point out that Summers has never expressed any desire to change Harvard’s policy on this issue, and had only urged the community to respect those choosing military service.

And with the spat with West, several supporters said that the columnists in question jumped to conclusions. Summers maintained that the uproar was at its root a miscommunication. But, conservatives emphasized the dispute’s political nature—citing a supposed attack on affirmative action and challenge to an academically questionable department.

Where They’re Right

Summers says he does not see University policy-making in terms of politics.

“I don’t think its useful to see the University through a political prism,” Summers says.

Friends and colleagues says that he takes this same perspective to issues in general. They describe him as evidence driven—pragmatic, principled and probing.

And his critical questioning of ideas is not checked by political ideology.

“He doesn’t look into a playbook and say, ‘this is a conservative policy or this is a liberal one,’” a friend says.

Instead, he questions everything.

Sperling describes Summers’ style as aggressive, analytical and applied regardless of ideological bent.

“Larry comes at issues very hard,” Sperling said. “He’s very rigorous at getting at what is effective.”

Sometimes Summers’ rigor was misinterpreted as opposition.

“Some people would challenge the efficacy of anti-poverty programs because they didn’t think government should be active in that area,” Sperling said. “Larry would challenge the program because he wanted government to be as active and effective as possible.”

In one sense then, friends say, conservatives might have been right in looking to Summers as a challenger of Harvard’s liberal status quo.

Summers is someone who will question prevailing norms, friends say. And given that Harvard’s norms are on average more liberal than conservative, such questioning means Summers will at times play the role conservatives ask of him.

“He’s very much a person who would not have a knee-jerk reaction to ‘ROTC does this, so we should bar it,’” one friend says.

And friends say Summers is not one to accept the dictates of political correctness without question.

“He begins by asking questions. If something is in place merely because it is politically correct, [Summers] will get to the bottom of it,” a friend says.

This was what conservative Boston Globe columnist Jeff Jacoby says he was hoping for in Summers’ term as President.

“What had impressed me was a more generalized sense that here was a guy who wasn’t inhaling the vapors of political correctness that waft all over Harvard,” Jacoby writes in an e-mail.

Sperling cautions that policies favorable to either side of the political spectrum will be subject to scrutiny.

“I think that people on all sides are going to have to realize that he’s not going to be one to accept a case on face value,” Sperling says.

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