It's Graduation Day!
Congratulations, graduates! And to celebrate, I've got lots of news about your alma mater—most of it relating to controversy!
First, the Harvard Admissions Office photoshopped a
headline embarrassing to Larry Summers out of a picture of the Harvard Crimson in an admissions brochure. (Sorry, that's a hideous sentence; I didn't sleep well last night.) The headline in question: "Summers to Face No-Confidence Vote."
Whoops! Dean of Admissions Bill Fitzsimmons says deleting the awkward headline from a pamphlet that goes out to prospective students was a "joint decision" between Byerly Hall and the Boston publisher which produces the pamphlet. The publisher says: "We were asked to make that change...."
Of course they were. Here's how the conversation went:
Publisher: "Hey, that's pretty funny that you're printing that picture of the Crimson. Look at the headline!"
Byerly Hall: "What headline?" (Unintelligible noises)
Publisher: "You okay? You don't look so good."
Byerly Hall: (Gurgling, considering leaving the country) "Larry's going to wring my ***** like a bolo for this. What can we do?"
Publisher: "We can take it out on the computer....no one will ever know." Pause. "You want some water?"
Byerly Hall: "Do it! Do it, I tell you!"*
(Copyright 2005 by Richard Bradley, film rights available.)
In all seriousness, why couldn't Bill Fitzsimmons have just said, "Sure, we asked them to take it out. We made a mistake choosing that photo, because it's not the message we want to send to prospective students"? No harm, no foul.
The contorted explanation is what happens to language, to
veritas, at a university where everyone is terrified of losing his or her job for making Larry Summers look bad..... Bill Fitzsimmons is fantastic at what he does—is there anyone better?—and even he has succumbed to doublespeak.
