Steal This Text; Punishment May Vary
The Crimson editorializes about the case of Laurence Tribe, just reprimanded but not punished by Harvard for committing plagiarism. Pertinent quote: "In a joint statement issued Thursday by President Summers and Harvard Law School Dean Elena Kagan, the University declined to formally punish Tribe in any substantial way. While Tribe has been mildly chastised for the academic dishonestly, the statement, coming months after the plagiarism was publicly acknowledged, amounts to little more than a slap on the wrist."
That, says the Crimson, constitutes a double standard in the treatment of professors versus that of students, who would surely receive a much harsher punishment had they committed the same act of plagiarism.
Well, yes. Absolutely true. But there's another double standard: the difference between the way Larry Summers treats professors he likes, and the way he treats those he doesn't. Laurence Tribe commits the gravest academic sin possible, and is "mildly chastised." But Cornel West, who was guilty only of being too popular with the wrong people, received a much harsher sentence—a nasty dressing-down, and the clear signal that he was unwelcome at Harvard.
That's not the only instance of the double standard. Summers has aligned Harvard firmly in support of scandal-tarred economist Andre Schleiffer, accused of investing in Russian stocks while he was under contract from the US government to help rebuild the Russian economy. (Boston Globe columnist
David Warsh has written smartly and with some exasperation about Harvard's bizarre defense of Schleiffer.) Is it any coincidence that Schleiffer is a longtime friend and intellectual partner of Summers?
Tribe, meanwhile, co-wrote a New York Times op-ed on affirmative action with Summers that brought the president reams of good publicity. Months later, Summers named him to the position of University Professor, the most exalted position a professor can attain at Harvard. Apparently, once you've reached that status, you can get away with anything...as long as you've scratched the president's back first.
It's this kind of behavior that has turned so much of the Harvard community against Summers—the sense that he plays favorites and devalues academic integrity in order to stack the university's highest positions with cronies....
