FOCUS: Summers' Tenure in Question

This page is the first of the “Focus” pages that the editorial board plans to run over the course of the semester. Each will be a collection of op-eds that are all pertinent to a single, current topic of discussion on the Harvard campus or nationwide. The goal of the Focus section is to bring both a greater depth and a greater breadth of opinions and voices to the editorial page.

After Tuesday’s Faculty of Arts and Sciences meeting, several individuals contacted the editorial board, requesting to pen their own opinions on the tension between the Faculty and University President Lawrence H. Summers. Interestingly, the feedback that The Crimson received—both the op-ed submissions and letters to the editor—overwhelmingly voiced support for both Summers and the comments he made on women and science at a recent conference of the National Bureau of Economic Research. In seeking to balance the opinions on the page, we contacted several professors who were some of the most vocal opponents of Summers at the Faculty meeting, and all those we contacted declined to write for this page.

The four op-eds on this page all support, to slightly varying extents, Summers’ past record of leadership and continued tenure as president of Harvard. We acknowledge the lack of an opposing voice on this page, and we point to yesterday’s Crimson Staff editorial, which criticized Summers for his past missteps and praised the Faculty for taking advantage of this moment to discuss Summers’ ability to lead the University.

—Michael B. Broukhim ’07, Andrew B. English ’07, and Matthew S. Meisel ’07