Richard... again, you just don't know what you're talking about. In general, it's hard to see what Summers was "wrong" about: he, as West's supervisor, met with West to give him a professional evaluation. West bitched about it like a child who's been rebuked by his parents. Or is tenure too sacrosanct to permit evaluation once awarded? Sounds a lot like what Summers was criticizing in his speech... but you, amazingly, limit your analysis to the CORNEL WEST incident instead of talking about anything else Prof. Summers said. You really do pathologically hate the man, don't you? You're entirely unable to fairly assess him or his work, let alone give him credit when it's due.

Specifically:

First, one of Summers' major criticisms of West was that he would simply "miss" lectures--that is, not show up to class because he was away from Cambridge working on other projects non-academic projects.

Second, everyone in his classes received "A"'s--that's why a lot of undergraduates loved him so much. When you were a TF, did you give everyone high marks?

Third, Summers clearly argued for professors who are BOTH great scholars AND great teachers (or did you even watch the speech, or are you limiting your analysis to the shoddy Crimson article?). West clearly didn't meet the first qualification, which Summers, if anyone, is equipped to judge.

When West bothered to come to lecture, he was lively and captivating, it's true. But he was mostly popular because of his celebrity status--something that you deplore in Summers, even though Summers won, oh, the Clark Medal--but he wasn't distinguished aside from his celebrity or anything.

Oh, and on an unrelated note--since I know you've been wanting to date Derek Bok since he came on board, are you going to talk at all about how several popular professors have been denied tenure--over the recommendations of their departments? Are you? Huh huh? Are you?

http://www.thecrimson.com/article.aspx?ref=517895

Or are you content to continue indulging the FAS mob that populates your blog? Because this certainly sounds "imperial" to me. Unless, of course, you concede that university presidents should be allowed to review tenure recommendations... in which case, one of the main objections to Summers falls by the wayside.
 

Hmmm...it's true, someone here doesn't know what he's talking about, but it ain't me. If you'd read Harvard Rules, you might remember the chapter I wrote on this incident. (Unlike you, I'm guessing, I interviewed West and a number of people familiar with the incident. So, other than Summers and West and a handful of other folks, I know more about what happened than most.)

Just for the record, it's silly to suggest that I have any pathological feeling towards Summers. He's obviously a very impressive man in many ways. I do find his mind fascinating, selective, provocative, contradictory, and self-justifying. And I do like to point those things out, yes.

As for your other points:

—First, one of Summers' major criticisms of West was that he would simply "miss" lectures--that is, not show up to class because he was away from Cambridge working on other projects non-academic projects.—

Simply not true.

—Second, everyone in his classes received "A"'s--that's why a lot of undergraduates loved him so much. When you were a TF, did you give everyone high marks?—

If you want to know how I was as a TF, you can find me in the CUE guide for 1992-1993.

More important, West's grades were not particularly inflated—that's a myth. (Hmmm. Wonder how that got started?) Also covered in Harvard Rules.

—Third, Summers clearly argued for professors who are BOTH great scholars AND great teachers (or did you even watch the speech, or are you limiting your analysis to the shoddy Crimson article?). West clearly didn't meet the first qualification, which Summers, if anyone, is equipped to judge—.

I am curious how Larry Summers, "if anyone"—who has never written a book and never achieved a breakthrough of signal import in his own field and once said that Af-Am is only justified because of slavery— is well-qualified to judge a professor of philosophy and Af-Am studies. Do tell.

—When West bothered to come to lecture, he was lively and captivating, it's true. But he was mostly popular because of his celebrity status--something that you deplore in Summers, even though Summers won, oh, the Clark Medal--but he wasn't distinguished aside from his celebrity or anything.—

I love that—"when West bothered to come...."
Just out of curiosity, how would you know why West was valued? Were you in any of his classes? (It was six years ago that he left.)

I have nothing against celebrity status per se, but it is a means to an end, not an end in itself.

And actually, I have no desire to date Derek Bok. He's married, I'm taken, things just wouldn't work out.

I'd be interested to learn more about these tenure cases, but I hardly know enough to write anything about them.
 

By the way, 11:36, this is the meeting which Summers commenced by telling West, "I want you to help me fuck Harvey Mansfield," an insincere suggestion that Summers, like West, supported affirmative action, which Mansfield did not. (Summmers probably didn't either.)

West understandably found the remark bizarre and borderline racist, because he doubted that Summers would use such language with a white professor.

(Although he may have been wrong about this; there are plenty of accounts of Summers using such language on other occasions.)

The rest of the meeting actually got worse from there. So if West came out of it a bit freaked out, perhaps one can understand why.

You might also be interested to read in Harvard Rules of how Summers tried to plant the (untrue) rumor that West was guilty of sexual harrassment....

By the way, both of the people present at that meeting have spoken to the press about it, but only one of them has spoken on the record. Guess which?
 

Anonymous 11:36, please read and respond: You stated that Cornel West "simply didn't show up" for many classes at Harvard. I just called my roommate, who took two semesters of courses taught, or co-taught, by West, and she tells me that never once did he fail to come to class. Occasionally a guest lecturer gave a class, but that is par for the course at Harvard. Unless you have personal knowledge of his not showing up, I am afraid you merely substantiate for me the fear that Larry Summers and his cronies set out to smear Cornel West by propagating falsehoods. If anyone else on this blog has direct, first-hand information about West's classes (which were huge courses, as he was perhaps the single most popular lecturer at Harvard back in his day), please weigh in. Speculation, gossip, rumor is not justifiable.
 

I disagree with Richard quite a bit, but on the facts about Summers v. West he is closer to the truth than anyone who has written or spoken about the incident publicly. Certainly more so than the poster who started this thread.
But the poster was right about one thing: it would be more interesting to discuss the substance of Summers' speech (even though very little in it is new and most of it would be agreed to by many FAS faculty except the attack on the FAS faculty)
 

Just piping in to say that the claim about West missing classes is NOT true. (Illustrative anecdote: West was in New York City on September 11th, 2001, the day before the first meeting of one of his classes. Not sure quite how he did it, but he got a ride or something and LECTURED IN LOWELL HALL the next morning. Possible that I've got some details wrong but the gist of the anecdote I'm pretty sure of.)

The TFs of his that I know would also dispute the claim that his course grades were hyperinflated.

Also, he is a very serious scholar, without necessarily writing anything that's much fun to read.

So what was Summers wrong about in "giving CW a professional evaluation"? By the accounts we have of the conversation: virtually everything.

I'd like to add just for the sake of the discourse that a professional evaluation is not something you are "given," like a haircut, a scolding, or a graham cracker. It's a process in which you collaborate, and in which rumors are not credited in themselves.

In favor of facts rather than leakings from an echo chamber --

Standing Eagle