The Times reported on Friday that Marc Hauser’s problems began three years ago, when a team of Harvard investigators “raided” his lab. The university has been looking into Hauser and his work ever since.

In January this year, a faculty committee at last completed its report, said to contain eight charges against Dr. Hauser. But the report was kept secret and nothing changed until this month when someone showed The Boston Globe a letter about the investigation from Dr. Hauser to his faculty colleagues.

This report raises serious questions, such as: What took Harvard three years? (This isn’t Iran-contra.) If the matter is so serious, why is Hauser only on leave? And why does the university continue to refuse to say anything—or even say something about why it won’t say anything?

And if any of the alleged misdeeds occurred before 1998, when Hauser was granted tenure by Harvard, should the university revisit that decision?

As a commenter on the blog Neuron Culture points out,

Also under question is a paper dating all the way back to 1995. Gordon G. Gallup Jr. of the State University of New York at Albany asked Dr. Hauser for videotapes of an experiment in which cotton-topped tamarins were said to recognize themselves in a mirror. Gallup could see no evidence for this.

Havard spokesperson Jeff Neal has implied that the university can not say anything publicly until the government finishes any investigation it may be pursuing.

That rationale has been shown on this blog to be untrue; if it weren’t an implication, it would be a lie, which is why it’s an implication.

Now Neal comes up with another excuse.

… a Harvard spokesman, Jeff Neal, declined to comment, saying the university had to respect individuals’ privacy.

Let us be fair to Neal, who is, after all, singing for his supper; it’s an embarrassment to Harvard that on a matter of this seriousness, the only person to step forward is a paid press secretary.

But as to his question: Why does the university have to respect this individual’s privacy?

I pose this as a serious question, not a rhetorical one. If Hauser did nothing wrong, then the university should clear the air. If he did, then his “right to privacy”—which may, in some instances, be a constitutional right, but at Harvard is probably not a contractual one, at least not when it comes to published work—should not exist.

Of course, if Harvard is legally bound in some stupid way not to disclose possible fraud by one of its employees, then, really, it needs a new contracts lawyer. Not least because Harvard is a) setting a terrible example for its students, and b) getting hammered in the press—even the press, like the Times and the Globe, that Harvard cares about.

A commenter below suggests that Hauser has friends in high places. That might explain Harvard’s reticence.

But it shouldn’t explain Drew Faust’s invisibility.

For years now, Faust’s handlers have labored to keep her away from any association with bad news—even if makes Faust look weak, which it does. (Which then, of course, has the effect of making her weak.) And Faust, weakly, goes along with their advice.

It’s unfortunate. She is un-firable; Harvard can not oust two presidents in a row, and certainly not its first woman. So why does she do so little with her unassailable position? She reminds me of the anchorman in last night’s episode of True Blood.

The other day I read a bit of an unpublished memoir whose author detailed a meeting with Derek Bok and Henry Rosovsky over a potentially litigious matter in which the university was probably at fault. The author suggested a resolution; Bok and Rosovsky conferred momentarily and said, “Okay, fine.” The author said, well, how do I know you’ll stick to this? Bok said, “You have our word.” And that was enough.

Would anyone trust Drew Faust’s word in such a matter? Does she even have autonomy to give it?

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