Summers’ Presidential Conduct Merited Resignation

To the editors:

I am puzzled by your February 22nd editorial lamenting the departure of Lawrence Summers as “Harvard’s Loss.”

Two deans of or under the Faculty of Arts and Sciences (FAS) have been humiliated by Summers. His behavior may be acceptable from a private person, but not as the leader of a great university that many believe to be the greatest.

To the rest of the world, Harvard stands for values greater than just academic excellence. Your editorial seems to suggest that because Dr. Summers could get a much-needed job done faster and better than anyone else, values such as personal dignity and civilized behavior are secondary.

Allow me to suggest that, as future leaders of the nation, you reconsider your own values.

Dr. Summers’ “correct visions” for Harvard and his laudable commitment to freshman seminars do not by themselves give him, as president of Harvard, the license to act inappropriately to faculty members.

How would you, as students, like to be openly insulted in a class taught by a brilliant professor who thinks that you are second rate? And if that behavior becomes a pattern, would you still consider him or her a role model that Harvard should retain? This does not even address the issue of whether you are, in fact, “second rate.”

I rather suspect it is a rare mediocre student that gets past the Harvard College Admissions Office. You, as students, should remember that getting tenure at Harvard may be more difficult than getting into the College.

Surely, The Crimson’s editors are not suggesting that two former deans under Harvard’s justly famous FAS are “second rate” and deserving of Mr. Summers’ open disdain? Allow me to suggest that your president’s behavior towards them and others is quite uncivilized.

Far from a loss for Harvard, Summers’ departure is a sign of fair Harvard reclaiming its dignity and integrity. You should feel proud, not discouraged.

SIN-MING SHAW
Patagonia, Argentina
February 22, 2006

The writer was a visiting scholar at the Fairbank Center for East Asian Research from 1999-2000.