Alumni See Summers As Strong Leader, Not Firebrand

To the editors:

Re: “Summers Resigns: Shortest Term Since Civil War; Bok Will Be Interim Chief,” news, Feb. 22.

It is a sad day indeed when a Harvard president is forced out of office for trying to establish reasonable standards in the permissive Harvard culture.

What the Faculty sees as arrogance, graduates see as forceful leadership. What the Faculty sees as the mortal sin of questioning aptitude between the sexes, graduates see a proper subject for discussion and debate.

I am reminded of the comment made by William F. Buckley that he would rather “be governed by the first one hundred names in the Boston phone book than by the Harvard Faculty.” Amen and veritas.

GERARD J. CASSEDY ’61
Jacksonville, Fla.
February 22, 2006