Time Magazine Alleges Summers' Resignation due to Ethics Violation

Colleges and Universities A-Z Harvard University
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<p>"Why Harvard's Summers Flunked the Presidency</p>

<p>By NATHAN THORNBURGH </p>

<p>Posted Tuesday, Feb. 21, 2006
Harvard President Lawrence Summers, who announced his resignation Tuesday after a tumultuous five years in office, was known for his rough touch. He saw it as his job to prod a potentially complacent institution.</p>

<p>But his tenure was marked by often bitter departures of some of the university’s highest-profile minds, from Cornel West in 2002 to the recent resignation of William Kirby, the dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences. The monthly meetings between Summers and Harvard faculty were never love-ins, but sources tell Time.com that the most recent meeting, on February 7th, turned into an unusually bitter showdown, not just over Kirby’s departure, but also over new allegations tying Summers to an old scandal.</p>

<p>At issue is Summers’ handling of a Russian fraud scandal involving a close friend and colleague, Harvard Economist Andrei Shleifer. Shleifer and Harvard were found liable for combined penalties of nearly $30 million in 2004 after they were charged with defrauding a U.S. government program designed to help Harvard economists privatize the Russian economy in the 1990s.</p>

<p>The scandal has long been considered one of Harvard’s darker hours, but a new 28-page exposé by investigative reporter David McClintick, published in the January 2006 issue of Institutional Investor magazine, brought new heat on Summers, whom the article describes as going out of his way to protect his old friend and protégé Schleifer, who is still a senior faculty member at the university. In part because of the report, the faculty meeting in balustraded University Hall found Summers under sustained attack, according to mechanical engineering professor Frederick Abernathy.</p>

<p>“I was somewhat taken aback. I had not expected to have something like 10 people speaking out against him,” says Abernathy. “Some were asking point-blank for his resignation, others were saying they were going to put a lack of confidence motion on the agenda for the next meeting. [The denunciations] went on for almost an hour..."
<a href="http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1161877,00.html%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1161877,00.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

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<p>Since when is Cornel West a "high profile mind?"</p>

<p><a href="http://www.thecrimson.harvard.edu/article.aspx?ref=161286%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.thecrimson.harvard.edu/article.aspx?ref=161286&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

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<p>There’s an article in today’s New York Times that bears on this.</p>

<p>Dr. Summers' recusal, said Robert D. Putnam, a former dean of the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard, was a turning point. </p>

<p>"When the president responded in a manifestly untruthful way to questions that were asked about the Shleifer case," Mr. Putnam said, "it had a devastating effect on the views of people who were to that point uncommitted, people who, like me, were strong supporters of his agenda." </p>

<p>Others, however, maintain that the events detailed by Mr. McClintick were a negligible factor in Dr. Summers's departure. The report is available at institutionalinvestor.com. </p>

<p><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/27/business/media/27mclintick.html%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/27/business/media/27mclintick.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

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<p>There is no way Summers was pushed to resign over political correctness...
it makes for catchy headlines with the culture war going on...
in fact, it makes for a "clean break"... the real reasons (scandal?)
might have gotten REALLY ugly for Harvard and generated a real PR problem...
but as long as the know-nothing editorialists bleat on over
their meme of "political correctness run amok" the real reasons/issues remain clouded... it's all smoke and mirrors... for the governing Corporation, I bet they
gladly take a few weeks of bad PR over the fake issue of political correctness than the much more painful bad PR over multi-billion dollar scandals.</p>

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<p>The Robert Putnam referred to above, who described Summers’ “manifestly untruthful” behavior at the February 7th meeting to the New York Times, had previously considered himself a Summers’ supporter and is among the most highly respected members of the Harvard faculty: </p>

<p>“Robert D. Putnam is Peter and Isabel Malkin Professor of Public Policy. He teaches both graduate courses at the Kennedy School and undergraduate courses at the Faculty of Arts and Sciences. He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, a Fellow of the British Academy, and past president of the American Poltical Science Association. Raised in a small town in the Midwest and educated at Swarthmore, Oxford, and Yale, he has served as Dean of the Kennedy School of Government. He has written a dozen books, translated into 17 languages….”</p>

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<p><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/27/business/media/27mclintick.html%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/27/business/media/27mclintick.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

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<p>Whatever happened to INNOCENT UNTIL PROVEN GUILTY? There was NO CONVICTION of Shleifer. They settled without charge of wrongdoing. Summers himself was even further removed from it. He RECLUSED himself from the situation.</p>

<p>A reed herring, if there ever was one!</p>

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<p>"Shleifer and Harvard were found liable for combined penalties of nearly $30 million in 2004 after they were charged with defrauding a U.S. government program designed to help Harvard economists privatize the Russian economy in the 1990s."</p>

<p>What do you require? Jail time?</p>

<p>That Summers' behavior/non-behavior here was enough to outrage a supporter like Putnam is pretty damning.</p>

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<p>There is a lot of scrambling going on to come up with a legitimate-sounding post lynching excuse for the turf-protectors' persecution of Summers. The idea is to throw as much mud as possible via the usual reliable media allies in order to quell the firestorm that has errupted. </p>

<p>A tried-and-true device.</p>

<p>Maybe they can further tarnish Summers through guilt-by-association and maybe they can't. The bottom line, however, is that the FAS will not improve its reputation in the eyes of outsiders by resorting to this tactic.</p>