Here We Go Again
The Crimson today publishes an editorial that seems to have two purposes: thanking "Dean Skopcol" [sic] for her service as GSAS dean while
justifying its earlier story in which anonymous faculty members tried to torpedo Skocpol's shot at the FAS deanship.
In just two short years under her leadership,
she has accomplished much, the Crimson writes, somewhat awkwardly.
Then, after one sentence in her favor, the Crimson follows with three paragraphs detailing how controversial she is.
The paper brings up her long-ago tenure fight and mentions that she once called Harvard "the most arrogant university in the Western world," a characterization that seems so self-evidently true, it can hardly be considered controversial.
And then, having established that she had a "penchant for controversy" from the get-go, the Crimson jumps ahead 20 years to her public opposition to Larry Summers. And, just as its reporters did in their earlier hatchet job, the paper quotes Jeremy Knowles describing her leadership style as "gently unambiguous." One suspects that Knowles did not intend his little joke to buttress the argument that Skocpol manifests—wait for it—"the strong-willed tendencies [sic] of Summers' tenure."
A couple of points.
First, the Crimson has now twice compared Skocpol's leadership style to that of Summers. (In its news analysis piece, it said that she
came to mirror the controversial president that she once opposed.)
Two comparisons to Summers, which we all know is like asking someone when he stopped beating his wife. And yet...one searches in vain for
a single example from the Crimson of Summersian behavior. Surely if so many professors are riding a "wave" of discontent, there must be one anecdote, one story of a dust-up, one example of imperious behavior that the Crimson could use to support its analogy?
I'm waiting....
Point two. For the second time, the Crimson frames Skocpol's tenure fight as primarily important because of its "controversy." That is its least important quality, and to suggest the opposite is simply lazy. She
won, folks. How often does that happen? (Has it ever otherwise happened?) Don't you think that for Derek Bok to overrule a denial of tenure, something egregious had to have happened? This is like saying that if a woman truthfully accuses someone of rape, then the woman is "outspoken." It's called blaming the victim.
And was it controversial for Skocpol to speak out against Summers? Certainly not among the anonymous professors now criticizing her. She reflected a sentiment that a clear majority of FAS professors felt, but not all wanted to say. Maybe with a little historical revisionism, speaking out against Summers becomes controversial. It wasn't at the time—not within FAS, that's for sure.
It's troubling the way this editorial uses anonymous assertions from the news analysis piece to justify its portrayal of Skocpol. Was there a "wave of uncertainty" about her candidacy? In the original story, two anonymous professors said so. In the editorial, this becomes "by many accounts."
In the original "news analysis," anonymous sources told the Crimson that president-elect Drew Faust has
expressed skepticism [about Skocpol as FAS dean]...perhaps sensing professors' wariness.
Huh.
To whom did Faust express this skepticism? (The Crimson doesn't say whether it asked Faust for comment.) To Skocpol? Or to the professors to whom she may just have been listening sympathetically, appearing to agree? (This is a thing that leaders sometimes do.) And what exactly did she say? These professors couldn't give a quote, a paraphrase, of her words? After all, they were there when she expressed her skepticism...weren't they?
The Crimson should have pushed for more specificity before printing such a damning assertion from anonymous sources who may have been hearing only what they wanted to hear.
Nonetheless, there it is again in the editorial, which has
University President [sic]
Drew G. Faust voicing doubt about Skocpol's bid for the deanship...
Finally, after all this, we get to a more level-headed consideration of Skocpol's achievements as dean.
Let me be clear: Everything the Crimson posits about discontent with Skocpol and her leadership style may be true.
But in relying upon anonymous sources, omitting evidence for its assertions, and negatively characterizing Skocpol's history at Harvard, the Crimson fails to establish the veracity of this argument. Moreover, by printing a "news analysis" and an editorial without first running a straight news piece about Skocpol's tenure as dean, it has failed to establish a factual record upon which to base its analysis and opinion.
Both in its earlier news analysis and in this editorial, the Crimson has fallen below its usual high standards of accuracy and fairness.
