Outsiders To Review Tenures at HLS

Outsiders are for the first time scrutinizing candidates for tenure at Harvard Law School (HLS), and University President Lawrence H. Summers now has more sway over who is appointed.

HLS officials confirmed this week that Summers has put in place a process that will allow him to screen candidates and potentially use his veto power more easily.

Candidates for tenure will be subject to review by an ad hoc committee composed of experts from outside the school, in a procedure mirroring that of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences (FAS).

According to Dean of the J.D. Program Todd D. Rakoff, Summers announced his intention to preside over ad hoc committees at a faculty meeting last spring.

In the past, law school tenure appointments were sent directly to Summers’ desk following a HLS faculty vote, for what was all but guaranteed approval.

Now, professors from FAS and beyond the University will scrutinize the law school’s potential hires, ultimately strengthening Summers’ hand in the process.

“The president has always had final say over appointments,” said Beneficial Professor of Law Charles Fried. “This is more of a matter of whether this will be the president putting a rubber stamp on what the faculty says or making his own decision with the ad hoc.”

One such committee already completed the review of an appointment last spring, but Summers has yet to approve the choice.

The move is part of a push by Summers for greater uniformity in appointment processes across the University. It also, however, is consistent with concerns he has raised that HLS in particular has made questionable appointments in the past.

Summers raised the issue as far back as two years ago, at his first meeting with the HLS faculty. This summer, he told The New York Times Magazine that the law school has made a number of “idiosyncratic choices” over the years.

A Summers spokesperson referred a request for comment yesterday to HLS.

Summers’ interactions with the law school faculty have been at times confrontational in the two years since he became president. He sparred with professors over the process of appointing a new dean, and he inherited a tense situation involving the school’s opposition to a move to Allston.

But with recent indications that the law school will be spared a move, the faculty seem to be okay with Summers’ new oversight over the appointment process.

Fried lauded the introduction of ad hoc committees “as long as they don’t make the whole process too cumbersome so that it takes too long to get anything done.”

“No faculty should be able to reproduce itself without some kind of outside scrutiny,” Fried said.

Rakoff acknowledged that change will mean less absolute autonomy for HLS.

“I suppose it is true to say that everyone always prefers to run their own business,” Rakoff said. “And this is a more comprehensive review by the central administration.”

But Rakoff said that he is confident that HLS professors will still have the requisite say in appointments, as two-thirds of the HLS faculty must still approve appointments.

Rakoff said that he was confident that Summers will push through the appointments with a “relatively rapid” speed.

—Staff writer Lauren A.E. Schuker can be reached at schuker@fas.harvard.edu.