The number of black people employed by Harvard continues to shrink.

Wait. Stop. That was sensational. True, but sensational. Let me start over.

Conrad Harper, the only African-American member of the Harvard Corporation in its 355-year history, has just resigned from that body, telling the Harvard Crimson that he “could no longer support President Summers.”

The Corporation, you will recall, is Harvard’s seven-member (including President Summers) governing body. It meets about once a month, in secret, and is notoriously tight-lipped. It happens to be the body which chose Larry Summers to be president—although Harper was rumored to have preferred Lee Bollinger, then the president of the University of Michigan and now the president of Columbia.

Since Summers was chosen, four members of the Corporation have retired from it, and Summers has handpicked replacements who are, in background and interest and perspective, rather like him.

Harper has apparently never been a fan of Summers. He was said to be furious about Cornel West’s departure for Princeton, and very concerned that Skip Gates would also leave. This spring, after the faculty vote of no-confidence in Summers, Corporation senior fellow Jamie Houghton released a letter saying that the Corporation supported Summers. Some eyebrows were raised over the fact that Houghton was the only signatory; it was whispered that Harper had refused to sign.

The quote that he gave—he “could no longer support President Summers”—adds some circumstantial evidence to that theory.

While this event may seem like inside baseball to some, to the Harvard community, it’s a very big deal. I’m not aware of any precedent—not, at least, in Harvard’s modern history. (Larry Summers is creating all sorts of unfortunate precedents at Harvard: first president given a vote of no-confidence, first president to become a national object of controversy, etc.)

Conrad Harper is a smart, highly respected man, a member of the New York legal establishment, a member of the United States establishment. He’s no fire-breathing radical, and he wouldn’t take this step lightly. He clearly wants it to have some impact.

This should be interesting…..