Summers Faces "Crisis" of Faculty Confidence

University President Lawrence H. Summers faced the biggest challenge to his leadership of his three-and-a-half year tenure this afternoon, as faculty members assailed him for intimidating professors and tarnishing the Harvard name.

The criticism came at the first full meeting of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences since Summers’ controversial Jan. 14 remarks suggesting that “innate differences” may help explain the scarcity of female scientists at top universities.

Today’s meeting, which lasted nearly 90 minutes, ended with a unanimous vote to hold an emergency meeting of the Faculty next Tuesday so that professors can further discuss their discontent with and lack of confidence in Summers’ leadership.

While many of Summers’ most outspoken critics led today’s charge, they were cheered on by large sections of the approximately 250 professors in attendance. Monthly faculty meetings typically draw less than half that number, but at this meeting, professors found themselves sitting on the floor, standing in doorways, and spilling out into the halls to watch the anticipated showdown with Summers.

Summers once again told professors that he “made a serious mistake” in his remarks on women in science last month.

“If I could turn back the clock, I would have said and done things very differently,” Summers said.

But the apology was not enough to satisfy Summers’ critics, many of whom arrived with prepared remarks that were intensely critical of him.

Thomas Professor of Government and Sociology Theda Skocpol accused Summers of “wrapping yourself in the mantle of academic freedom” by refusing to release the transcript of his now-infamous remarks, adding that he must release the transcript to begin to restore the Faculty’s confidence in him.

Summers said that he would “consider very seriously” the request to release a transcript of his comments, but said that he currently does not intend to do so.

Skocpol’s opinion that the University is suffering from a “crisis of governance and leadership” was shared by the overwhelmingly majority of professors who spoke, many of whom criticized Summers for stifling debate and intimidating professors into silence.

Sociology Department Chair Mary C. Waters said that the free discussion and debate that is necessary for a university to flourish has been stifled under Summers’ leadership. She said that many professors are “held hostage to fear” and are afraid to voice their discontent with the administration’s policies for fear of retribution.

Peretz Professor of Yiddish Literature Ruth R. Wisse, the only professor who spoke openly in support of Summers, said that her fellow professors were doing a disservice to themselves by allowing gender politics to silence the open discussion Summers had intended to foster with his remarks last month.

“This is a show trial to beat all show trials,” Wisse said.

While no professors openly called for Summers to step down as President, many asked the Faculty to consider if Summers’ leadership is beneficial for the University.

The Faculty must “debate openly whether yours are the social and scholarly agenda that we want pushed from Mass. Hall,” said Professor of Anthropology and of African and African American Studies J. Lorand Matory.

—Staff writer William C. Marra can be reached at wmarra@fas.harvard.edu.