Guilty! Guilty! Guilty!
Well, not yet. Not
technically, anyway.
Continuing its newfound tradition of burying bad news over Summers vacation—whoops, summer vacation—Harvard is reportedly about to settle the federal lawsuit against the university.
You may recall that the government brought the suit over the behavior of economist Andre Shleifer, whose Harvard Institute for International Development received massive sums from the US to consult on the Russian economy in the 1990s. Turns out that Shleifer was allegedly investing in the very same things he was consulting on. Oh, well. Shleifer teaches economics, not ethics. (And a good thing, too.)
As Marcella Bomardieri and Alex Beam report in the Globe, "a federal judge had already found that Harvard economics professor Andrei Shleifer and former employee Jonathan Hay conspired to defraud the government by making personal investments in Russia while working on a federal contract to help the country's transition to capitalism. The judge also ruled last year that Harvard breached its contract with the US Agency for International Development. Damages in the case have not been determined."
No one's talking about the terms of the settlement yet, but inevitably it will raise this awkward question: If Harvard admits wrongdoing, and/or agrees to pay a fine, does Andre Shleifer get to keep his job? He won't exactly be a convicted criminal, but close enough to think that his continued presence on the Harvard faculty would be a stain on the university.
The matter would seem a no-brainer...
except for this relevant detail: Shleifer is one of Larry Summers' best friends.....
Will Summers continue to support his friend? Or will he put Harvard's best interest ahead of his own sense of loyalty?
Hey, no one ever said being a university president was easy.
