<p>Wednesday, February 22, 2006; Page A14 Washington Post</p>
<p>UNIVERSITIES EXIST to pose tough questions, promote critical thinking, and generally challenge complacency and prejudice. When he became president of Harvard five years ago, Lawrence H. Summers determined that the university was not living up to this mission: It was infected by its own complacencies and prejudices, and he did not shrink from saying so. This outspokenness won Mr. Summers support across the university: A new online poll conducted by the Harvard Crimson found that 57 percent of undergraduates supported him -- only 19 percent thought he should resign -- and the deans of several faculties praised his leadership. But Mr. Summers alienated a vocal portion of the Arts and Sciences faculty, which pressed last year for a vote of no confidence in him and recently forced a second such vote on to the schedule for next week. Yesterday Mr. Summers preempted that second vote by announcing that he would step down in the summer. Because of the prestige of Harvard, his defeat may demoralize reformers at other universities.</p>
<p>Mr. Summers fought several well-publicized battles with Harvard's establishment. He refused to rubber-stamp appointees chosen by the faculties, blocking candidates who seemed insufficiently distinguished and pressing for diversity in political outlook. This prompted complaints that he was acting like a corporate chief executive -- as though there were something wrong with that. Next, Mr. Summers had the temerity to suggest that Cornel West, a professor of Afro-American studies, produce less performance art and more scholarship. This plea for academics to do academic work was construed as racist. After the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, Mr. Summers criticized Harvard's hostility to the U.S. armed forces and called attention to the cultural gap between elite coastal campuses and mainstream American values. The fact that these commonsensical positions alienated people at Harvard speaks volumes about the cultural gap that troubled Mr. Summers.</p>
<p>Perhaps most explosively, Mr. Summers raised the possibility that the underrepresentation of women in science and engineering faculties might reflect innate gender differences in ability. His claim was not that women were less intelligent on average, but rather that fewer women than men might be outstandingly bad or outstandingly good at math, with the result that the pool of math geniuses from which universities recruit is disproportionately male. "I would far prefer to believe something else, because it would be easier to address what is surely a serious social problem if something else were true," he noted. But he was immediately branded a sexist.</p>
<p>Mr. Summers can be undiplomatic, as he acknowledged in his resignation letter. But university professors, of all people, should not require mollycoddling; they should be willing to embrace leaders who ask hard questions about how well they are doing their jobs. The tragedy is that the majority at Harvard seems to have known that. But, in university politics as elsewhere, loud and unreasonable minorities can trump good sense.</p>
<p>""In the special case of science and engineering, there are issues of intrinsic aptitude, and particularly of the variability of aptitude, and that those considerations are reinforced by what are in fact lesser factors involving socialization and continuing discrimination,""</p>
<p>There are big plans for a protest at next Tuesday's faculty meeting demanding the faculty to enumerate their grievances with the President. A possible sit-in has also been considered.</p>
<p>I'm thinking that the editorial writer might get about a B- in Expository Writing: Nice development of a global thesis, which is but a half-truth at best.</p>
<p>Effective leadership in the service of "Veritas" also includes at least a dollop of humility, collegiality, respect for others, interpersonal skills, and casting an enticing vision, in addition to intellectual firepower, ambition, tenacity, and friends in high places who got him appointed in the first place, ... remember?... with the assurances that his rough edges were no longer so rough.</p>
<p>For all its weirdness and shortcomings, there is a brilliance to the place, and tarnishing the brand can only be tolerated for so long. Turning Summers into a "victim" does him a disservice and exhibits the kind of "truthiness" that is anathema to veritas. It was a bad match; leave it at that and move on.</p>
<p>"UNIVERSITIES EXIST to pose tough questions, promote critical thinking, and generally challenge complacency and prejudice. When he became president of Harvard five years ago, Lawrence H. Summers determined that the university was not living up to this mission: It was infected by its own complacencies and prejudices, and he did not shrink from saying so."</p>
<p>What horrible sentences. Oh, and the repetition doesn't serve any purpose. </p>
<p>But enough bashing this poor writer. The sit-in would be interesting to watch ;).</p>
<p>"I'm sorry for him, and I'm sorry for Harvard."</p>
<p>Agreed. Summers' comments on females was especially blown out of proportion. I hear all the time people talking about "girls are better at thinking abstractly" or "girls favor their left-side of the brain" (maybe it was the other way around, I don't really know)...but nobody jumps up and screams "SEXIST!" But it's really talking about the same thing: intrinsic differences between male and female brain structure.</p>
<p>And as the article says, he never insulted the intelligence of women.</p>
<p>Only 218 out of an FAS eligible group of over 700 voted "no confidence" in him. None of the other 6 faculties (Med, Law. Business etc were involved at all.</p>
<p>There is anecdotal evidence that Alumni support for Summers equalled or exceeded that shown by the students.</p>
<p>I was there over the summer and he gave a very good speech about making sure the university changes to the new global environment and our technological challenges, so as to ensure its academic supremacy. But, by losing him, isn't Harvard effectively saying that they are too interested in really asking the tough questions that Summers posed? And, consequently, isn't Harvard maybe giving way to some people's criticisms that, in fact, its a school which has more brand name than is actually deserved?</p>
<pre><code> Would that Summers were as effective in implementing his vision and bringing others along, as the Crimson editorial's summary of it. [However, the editorial writers should fact-check the date of the women-in-science speech: last winter (January) not "last spring." Also, grammar-check in WORD will catch their errors in using "which" instead of "that." And "je ne sais quoi" - ouch for such pretentious cliche.]
</code></pre>