Waffle, Waffle
The Crimson also runs an unfortunately tepid editorial on the AIDS grant situation.
Key grafs: "Bureaucratic oversight is often a necessary evil at a university. The administration's unprecedented takeover of a federal grant given to a researcher that teh School of Public Health (SPH) is a perfect example of this. In February of 2004, Professor of Immunology and Infectious Diseases Phyllis Kanki received a $107 million grant to address AIDS in Africa as part of President Bush's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief. ...But last summer, University officials imposed a centralized management structure on Kanki as well as a provision tantamount to a gag order that prevents her from talking to the government, even though she was the recipient of the grant.
"It is unfortunate that the University is forcing Kanki to manage her grant through an executive director who reports directly to Mass. Hall. However, given the tremendous size of the grant—almost two times larger than any other received by Harvard—and the liability Harvard assumed by accepting the grant, the administration's actions are understandable though inexplicably heavy-handed."
Curious, that phrase—"understandable though inexplicably heavy-handed."
I know the Crimson tends to err on the side of caution when criticizing the Harvard administration, but this time, the Crimson has just erred. If Harvard has long-established principles of grant management—which of course it does—then the particular size of this grant is not the issue. Moreover, oversight by this Mass. Hall is hardly a guarantee that things will run better. Finally I'm not convinced that liability was an issue here either; the comparison between this grant and Andre Shleiffer's work in Russia is tenuous. (Somehow I don't see Dr. Kanski investing in African stocks.)
The Crimson is buying into the spin put out by Mass Hall. It should raise the question of whether Summers' overarching desire to control every major project at Harvard led him to delay implementation of the grant program for five months, possibly costing thousands of lives. I suspect that the real reason the Crimson won't just come out and say so is because the possibility is simply so upsetting, so appalling, that no one wants to believe it could be true.
Meanwhile, I wonder how Summers' apologists—those people who talk about him being a free speech martyr—will reconcile that portrayal with the fact that he (through his dean, Barry Bloom) imposed a "gag order" on a Harvard professor. To keep her from talking to the government....
