A Time for Repentance

It would be a grave understatement to say that University President Lawrence H. Summers has ruffled his share of feathers during his three-and-a-half year tenure. This was all too evident at a faculty meeting two days ago, where Faculty of Arts and Sciences professors let him have it about issues ranging from his recent comments on the innate differences between men and women to his blunt and divisive leadership style and his opaque administrative structure. Almost without exception, these critiques were justified. President Summers’ missteps reflect a consistent lack of judgment in his dealings with Harvard faculty and the wider world. The faculty’s vehement reaction to Summers at Tuesday’s meeting was not a consequence of any single error in his judgment, but rather to a chain of mistakes extending throughout his time at Harvard.

This chain began in January of 2002, when former Fletcher University Professor Cornel R. West ’74 chose to leave Harvard, citing an October 2001 meeting with Summers that West characterized in an interview with the New York Times as “authoriz[ing] vicious attacks on my integrity and my work based on my politics.” Though Summers later said that he regretted any misunderstandings, the damage was done. By providing an example of where a disagreement with Summers could lead, Summers’ interaction with West in many ways laid the groundwork for the poisoning of his relationship with the rest of Harvard College’s faculty.

In the proceeding years, Summers has estranged a large portion of the faculty by making them feel as though their concerns go unheeded. At the aforementioned faculty meeting, Rabb Professor of Anthropology Arthur M. Kleinman said to Summers, “There is a crisis concerning your style of leadership and governance.” Many other faculty members echoed his concern, and Sociology Department Chair Mary C. Waters even claimed that professors dared not critique Summers for fear of retribution.

This outpouring negative sentiment at the faculty meeting two days ago was hardly the first time that some had complained about Summers’ penchant for stifling debate and his inattentiveness to professors’ suggestions. In September of 2002, Summers characterized the effects, if not the aim, of a campaign to divest Harvard from Israel as anti-Semitic. In response, a number of professors, including Professor of the History of Science Everett I. Mendelsohn, criticized the president harshly for limiting open discussion on the topic. During Allston planning last February, Professor of German Peter J. Burgard bemoaned the lack of meaningful faculty debate on the preparations. And in the wake of Summers’ comments on innate differences between men and women, Daniel S. Fisher, professor of physics and applied physics, said, “For the president, it is fine to be provocative, but for faculty, serious questions and constructive dissent are squelched.” Taken in isolation, incidents like these could be minimized and ignored. But that is not the case here. No matter what Summers himself believes he meant or did, it is clear that a critical mass of the faculty has completely lost confidence in his leadership abilities.

And, while the latest brouhaha over Summers’ comments on the innate differences between men and women in science was overblown by the national media and some professors, it illustrates his inability to understand the detrimental effects his words can have. Summers himself admitted in a letter sent to the Faculty Standing Committee on Women that he had “misjudged the impact of [his] role as a conference participant.” Moreover, professors should not feel ashamed about using these comments as a touchstone, as they have, to provoke debate over Summers’ entire presidency. These issues have been simmering for more than three years, and they need to be addressed regardless of the appropriateness of the catalyst. Better to air grievances now, when the faculty has Summers’ undivided attention, than to continually put off the most essential question of Summers’ presidency until the differences between the two camps are irreconcilable.

It is worth noting here that Harvard’s higher leadership was utterly absent during this building conflict. In an interview with The New York Times last month, Robert E. Rubin ’60, a member of the Corporation that appoints Harvard’s president, professed no knowledge of Summers’ troubles with the faculty. This oversight is inexcusable. In the future, the Corporation must take a more active role in ensuring that the president actually functions within the university. It seems likely that corrective action from the Corporation at an early period could have headed off this Summers-faculty impasse long before it reached its current stage.

Despite the dire situation—many faculty in open revolt, presidents of other schools publicly rebuking Summers in the media, and entire generations of female scientists bristling at his comments—we believe that President Summers can still lead himself out of this fiasco. Doubtless, he has dug himself a deep hole, and it will take a sincere, sustained effort to re-earn the confidence and respect of a majority of the faculty. An apology is not sufficient, as Summers has apologized enough in the past, with varying results. Neither are more task forces enough. Although we applaud Summers for forming two committees to explore problems of women in science, the current problem is centered on a single person. Instead, Summers must detail exactly what steps he will take to change his curt leadership style and resented policies.

Most important, Summers should recognize the value of Harvard’s faculty. The University would not be the most distinguished university in the world with sub-par professors. Summers must realize that ignoring, brushing off, or failing to solicit their collective wisdom is not just a poor leadership decision. It is an arrogant one.

The faculty does not need to meet President Summers in the middle on this issue, as it is Summers’ prerogative to reconcile his differences with them. But that doesn’t mean professors should refuse to acknowledge steps that Summers takes to make his administration more transparent and welcoming of advice and criticism. We explicitly and fervently call on the faculty to avoid holding a vote of no confidence at next Tuesday’s special meeting. With the Corporation almost surely behind President Summers, the chances that he would ever resign are slim, especially when Summers has so many unfinished tasks in Allston and in other areas of his responsibility. Neither would we in any way support his resignation, for these very reasons.

Harvard cannot remain at the top by standing still, and Summers has not and will not let the University rest on its laurels. But driving the University to become richer and more powerful than it is should never come at the expense of alienating large swaths of an irreplaceable faculty. Now is the time for compromise. Sacrificing his own ambitions and opinions for the good of the University is the only way for President Summers to lift the black pall of distrust, anger and estrangement now draping Harvard’s every corner.