At Harvard, Secrets and Lies
Posted on March 10th, 2013 in Uncategorized | 49 Comments »
A New York Times reporter called me last night to ask my opinion on the email scandal at Harvard; I was flying to Los Angeles, so hadn’t yet read the Globe piece exposing the fact that Dean Michael Smith ordered a secret search of the email accounts of 16 residential deans.
Harvard University central administrators secretly searched the e-mail accounts of 16 resident deans last fall, looking for a leak to the media about the school’s sprawling cheating case, according to several Harvard officials interviewed by the Globe.
The move could have been acceptable under a certain interpretation of Harvard policy, but Smith’s office did not follow the terms of that policy; for instance, it did not inform 15 of the 16 deans that their email had been searched.
Naturally, when the Globe started asking questions, a Harvard press secretary (one of the hordes of Harvard press secretaries) was forced to take the fall for Smith, who himself lacked the cojones to talk to reporters.
This is, I think, one of the lowest points in Harvard’s recent history—maybe Harvard’s history, period. It’s an invasion of privacy, a betrayal of trust, and a violation of the academic values for which the university should be advocating. And all to try to hunt down the source of a leak on a story about which the university should have been forthcoming in the first place (but of course wasn’t).
You might expect this from the Nixon White House, but you shouldn’t expect it from Harvard.
That may be changing.
Tim McCarthy wrote this on Facebook, and I think he’s quite right:
To think that the powers that be-who are so often detached from and seemingly disinterested in the lives of students here-would search the emails of those who care most about students, who tend to them on a daily basis, simply to preserve their pristine image in the media-this makes me sick to my stomach. “Veritas” means “truth,” right?
McCarthy also makes the point that this spying is worse than the original cheating scandal, and I think that that is also correct. Perhaps Dean Smith never heard the old Washington adage, “The cover-up is worse than the crime.” That, too, came out of the Nixon White House.
Smith owes the university, at the very least, an apology. But I don’t think a resignation should be off the table.
49 Responses
3/10/2024 11:56 am
I agree with Tim’s take, and Harry’s, but not yours:
“It’s an invasion of privacy, a betrayal of trust, and a violation of the academic values for which the university should be advocating.”
A dean has no privacy interest in e-mails he sends to students about advising policies.
A dean does not and should not “trust” that he will not have that non-existent privacy violated. He should be ready at any point to hand over such an e-mail to any other dean with a need to know what was said.
Academic values are not at issue in the failure to follow policy. At issue, instead, are basic administrative values. When someone fails to follow policy, s/he must be accountable. The policy is there for a reason, and it is not intrinsically an academic reason. It’s about integrity, honesty, and respect. These are human values, not academic or intellectual ones.
Heads should roll, but they won’t — because the deans in question apparently believed in good faith AND ENTIRELY WRONGLY that the resident deans were not “faculty,” and therefore the policy didn’t apply to them. This is an epiphenomenon of the steady and mostly purposeful erosion of the academic status afforded to ABRD’s leading up to and since Harry’s departure. Wrongheadedness develops when the wrong people are placed in key policy jobs.
Standing Eagle
3/10/2024 11:57 am
You should have linked to this too:
http://harry-lewis.blogspot.com/2013/03/email-privacy-at-harvard.html
3/10/2024 1:00 pm
I wouldn’t blame Michael Smith, necessarily. Is it clear the snooping came from his office, the College dean’s, or the general counsel’s?
3/10/2024 1:05 pm
As pointed out, Harry (and I) have blogged on this (mine is at
http://mybiasedcoin.blogspot.com/2013/03/harvard-spies-on-e-mails.html
)
I disagree with your take that resignation should be on the table. While we don’t have full details, what this seems to be was either
1) a violation of policy (if Resident Deans are faculty, which seems to be the case)
2) not technically a violation of policy, but what seems to be an error in judgment (if Resident Deans are not faculty, which seems to open entirely new cans of worms, like how do Resident Deans feel about that possibly surprising classification, and how students should understand the RD/student relationship if RDs e-mails are not treated as private as a matter of course).
In neither case, though, would I suggest that this is a “hanging offense”. There were significant competing, compelling interests (the sanctity of confidentiality of the Ad Board). And e-mail privacy is a truly hairy issue that society is still working out. Let’s give the administration a chance to respond. Perhaps an apology is forthcoming.
3/10/2024 1:51 pm
Fair enough, Michael. I happen to be pretty hard-core on the subject of reading people’s emails—if you start doing that in one instance, where does it stop?—but I acknowledge that there’s room for disagreement here.
I’ll be interested to see if an apology is forthcoming.
3/10/2024 1:55 pm
This is, I think, one of the lowest points in Harvard’s recent history—maybe Harvard’s history, period.
Get a grip. The school has been in business for 377 years and elite higher education in our time is a racket obsessed with appearance and public relations - a perfect collecting pool for the world’s hollow men. It likely was not the lowest point in the last two weeks.
3/10/2024 2:08 pm
That e-mail will contain the usual banalities about respecting privacy and protective policies. These ripple effects are a reminder that the entire cheating scandal was handled badly in the first place. No honest discussion of what happened, unwillingness to investigate the course practices and the role of the government department, the instructor, and the TFs, and a complete failure to make sure that it will not happen again.
3/10/2024 2:15 pm
I don’t think so, Art Deco. Spying on faculty is a game-changer.
3/10/2024 2:16 pm
Also, terrific blogs from Harry Lewis and Michael Mitzenmacher linked to above.
3/10/2024 3:06 pm
This is, I think, one of the lowest points in Harvard’s recent history—maybe Harvard’s history, period.
Art Deco @ 3/10/2024 1:55 pm: Notice the word “recent”. I think that that modifier (and it is not a weasel word here), makes your comment off point. You’d have to take the view mistakenly ascribed to Chou En Lai to believe that all of Harvard’s history is covered by RB’s comment.
I am curious to know what “recent” does mean in this context. Does it go back as far the 1950s and Harvard’s dealings with McCarthyism (e.g., http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2005/feb/10/mccarthyism-at-harvard/?pagination=false)? How about Summers’ protections of Schleifer (which our blogger has covered in much detail) in the last decade?
3/10/2024 3:40 pm
Very sad to read in the Globe that FAS faculty suspected that Larry Summers was reading their emails. Whether he was or was not, the idea that professors would fear that the President -or anyone else for that matter- would read their email is a brutal violation of the most basic trust of an academic community.
3/10/2024 4:08 pm
The reporting is muddying the waters by not explaining the how the dual e-mail accounts came to be. For part of my run as a Resident Dean, I had just my standard “name@fas” account. Then, standardized “xx-abrd@fas” accounts were created so that reaching the current position holder would be easier for students on leave or concerned faculty members who weren’t keeping up with turnover in this crucial yet often medium-term (3-5 years) position. That is why this statement in the Globe isn’t quite accurate: “The deans have two Harvard e-mail accounts – one primarily intended for administrative duties, and another for personal matters.” My “name@fas” was always my professional e-mail for the purposes of teaching and other work related to my academic department. When issued my shiny new “ma-abrd@fas” (short for “Mather House Allston Burr Resident Dean”), I understood I was merely a tenant at that address and that everything I wrote and received in that account would be passed on to my successor. I used the account accordingly, though I never would’ve thought anyone was reviewing it along the way.
On a related yet different note, annual appointment letters from the administration were always clear that my ABRD position and my Lecturer position were distinct, even if in practice they were a package deal. Thus, while the ethics of this situation are up for debate, I can at least see the basis for a dishearteningly clinical argument as to why xx-abrd@fas accounts don’t fall under faculty privacy rules. Of course, this was 5+ years ago so things may have changed.
3/10/2024 4:33 pm
We’re dealing with moral and ethical issues here. All the rest is noise.
3/10/2024 4:48 pm
Sam, can you elaborate? The starting point was the leak of a confidential Ad Board e-mail. I can see the starting point from the administration’s point of view: such leaks are bad in and of themselves (independent of actual content — who knows what will appear in the next leak), so it is best that the leaker is found. Is it immoral or unethical for Harvard to search through e-mail to determine the possible source of the leak? This is not obvious to me. As many people have pointed out in various forums, in general it’s been found by the courts that it’s legal for businesses to examine their employees’ e-mail. I won’t go so far as to suggest that means it’s ethical and moral, but I think it’s a challenging argument.
But even if it’s not deemed immoral or unethical, there remains the question as to whether it’s within Harvard’s stated policies.
And even if it is, then the question remains whether it was prudent, or if it damages various trust relationships (administration/faculty; administration/resident deans (if they’re not faculty); resident deans/students).
I don’t view the themes raised by these last two paragraphs as noise. But I’m interested in other opinions.
3/10/2024 5:49 pm
BZ, what are you talking about? We were issued xx-abst addresses when we started in 2003; my predecessor had used it. They were later replaced by ABRD of course.
I think the “clinical” argument is pretty clearly specious, since a person is a person and can’t be divided into roles….
Have you been creeping on this blog all these years? Yeesh, I thought it was interesting enough to spur you to comment many times before now…
3/10/2024 6:40 pm
Professor Mitzenmacher,
You asked: “Can I elaborate” on the ethical and moral issues? Sure.
You said: “Is it immoral or unethical for Harvard to search through e-mail to determine the possible source of the leak? This is not obvious to me. As many people have pointed out in various forums, in general it’s been found by the courts that it’s legal for businesses to examine their employees’ e-mail.”
I think you are correct. It is not illegal for Harvard to search through e-mail to determine the possible source of the leak. However, while courts decide legal issues, the courts do not decide what is moral or ethical.
You and I both know that judicial courts, which were lawfully constituted, ruled in Dred Scott, the Nuremberg Laws, and Japanese internment. The first and the third were decided by the Supreme Court. Lawful, absolutely. Morally correct rulings… ask Professor Sandel.
I’m not trying to equate those decisions with this situation. However, the law does not necessarily deal with moral issues.
You also say: “But even if it’s not deemed immoral or unethical, there remains the question as to whether it’s within Harvard’s stated policies.”
Here, you are correct as well. However, as Harry wrote about HUIS, we have to consider this: “The faculty member is entitled to prior written notice that his or her records will be reviewed, unless circumstances make prior notification impossible, in which case the faculty member will be notified at the earliest possible opportunity.”
Six months later, belatedly, those, whose e-mails were “looked at”,were notified (and who the hell knows why this finally came about!). Was this the earliest possible opportunity? I do not believe it was. Why were the rules broken? Who broke them? Was it deliberate? Will someone be held accountable for breaking these rules, or are there different punishments (or no punishments) for different groups?
As I said, all of this does not rise to Dred Scott etc. Perhaps I’m wrong, but for me, it does bring out certain ethical and moral lapses that we don’t expect from academic institutions. Ethical and moral lapses exist in government. We call that politics. As a professor at Harvard, don’t you expect something different from your university?
3/10/2024 7:17 pm
SE: I first commented when the scandal broke because I thought I had something to add. I was surprised that you didn’t chime in at the time. If you compare the 2004-05 and 2006-07 FAS Handbooks, you’ll see that there are just a couple of generic accounts in the former and everyone is generic in the latter. This was a policy change for clearly laid out reasons, not a recommendation or option as it had been. (It wasn’t just because of the cosmetic ABST vs. ABRD thing as you surmise.) To be clear, I’m not embracing the clinical argument; I’m only saying that as of 2006-07-eons ago in terms of changes within Harvard-there were at least two articulations I recall of how Resident Deans might be expected to compartmentalize their administrative and academic identities.
3/10/2024 7:44 pm
I thought I chimed in pretty quickly. Are you talking about this same scandal that broke yesterday?
I take your point that different ABSTs used or disused their official accounts differently before ’04. I didn’t really take notice; but I’m sure there was an ma-abst account in ’03-04, whether used or not.
I understood your stance on the clinical argument. I assume you agree that a person can’t be compartmentalized; if they could, as Harry says, administrative topics could be searched in any senior professor’s email if he had a “staff” role.
In general on the question of whether a res dean is a scholar and a faculty member: Like in so many other ways, the world would have been different in this regard if we had gotten to work for the guy who hired us….
3/10/2024 8:32 pm
As noted in the Globe story, the ABRD sent the innocuous email with generic advice onwards to an affected student, and it was the student who then, in turn, forwarded the email to others. It does not seem like the ABRD leaked anything at all.
3/10/2024 8:34 pm
But you guys overlapped with Sari Takacs, right? She was Associate Professor of the Classics bef while ABST and went on to get tenure at Rutgers. Only a theoretical point of comparison since all ABRDs are Lecturers now,
3/10/2024 8:40 pm
But you guys overlapped with Sari Takacs, right? She was Associate Professor of the Classics before and while ABST and went on to get tenure at Rutgers. Only a theoretical point of comparison since all ABRDs are Lecturers now, but a case to thin about in parsing this.
Though frankly, though I helped draft that policy, I care less about the fine points of it wording and applicability than I do about common courtesy and th golden rule. Maybe we will learn why people couldn’t be told, but you don’t need a policy document to know that would almost always be the right thing to do.
(sorry for the incomplete ost - RB, pls delete it.)
3/10/2024 9:03 pm
@ SE: I meant when the cheating scandal broke at the end of the summer and there was a lot of chatter on this blog.
@ Harry Lewis: We didn’t overlap with her, but you’re right that it shouldn’t be all about the terms and conditions of email privacy and questions about lines between administrators and faculty members.
There was a surprisingly measured comment under the Crimson story about this. It captured my initial response to this mess: why didn’t someone just ask the ABRDs if they shared the email or excerpts of it with one or more students for the purposes of advising? I simply can’t believe this didn’t happen. If it did and someone didn’t fess up or couldn’t do the forensic work on his/her own sent-mail folder to realize the mistake, then I’d have my doubts about his/her suitability for the job.
3/10/2024 9:09 pm
BZ: Oh, I hardly considered the cheating scandal a scandal. Obviously the assignment was ill-conceived, but also obviously there needed to be individuated disciplinary responses. I was impressed at the deliberate process and the personal attention to each case leading to different sanctions.
“I simply can’t believe this didn’t happen.”.
Oh, I can. Failure to take the sensible, human, and maximally communicative approach, in the face of media nightmares, is a default sphincter-clench reflex, especially for administrators who don’t understand the assets embodied in the ABRDs. Another reason Catherine’s position was so valuable before the budget axe came down on it.
3/10/2024 11:32 pm
Harvard has a stake in protecting it’s interest and protecting itself from the damaging acts of employees. Also I wouldn’t call this an ethical or moral “lapse”, it’s bombastic language and an overreaction. I think it’s sad that the faculty at harvard can be so separated from reality and the way the world actually works to express outrage over a minor incidence and that their lives are so lacking and the life of the public that an incident where students showed a judgement mistake that occurs on a daily basis in other colleges and in the tens of thousands of annual across the country receives any attention in general.
It shows a public that is consumed with an ivy league college and faculty who similarly are consumed with themselves. Roughly put, who cares. Although the most likely response is the hurt egos and feelings of the deans and the faculty in large will respond by trying to terminate the president or the dean who ordered the search. I wouldn’t doubt such a selfish response which further impunes the reputation of the university and negatively effects the student body’s ability to learn without distraction and without the consequences of fractious professors.
3/10/2024 11:45 pm
imputes*
3/11/2024 12:14 am
Mason —
I (above) also question the language of calling it a moral or ethical lapse; it’s not the language I would use. In particular, it does ignore what appears to be the administration’s concern, the potential leaking of what was supposed to be confidential information. That doesn’t mean that I think they made the right decision; but calling it a moral or ethical lapse seems excessive in light of the information currently available. I also, I think, made clear I didn’t termination/resignation was an appropriate outcome.
I think it’s unfair, however, to judge us as being “consumed with” ourselves. At Harvard we have our rules; it seems like the administration ignored a rule; those of us who work at Harvard under our rules are, I think, rightly concerned. (Even if for technical reasons they don’t believe the rule applied, because they had their own interpretation of the rule that appears questionable, that’s still a concern for those of us here.) Why does the rest of the world care so much that newspapers pay attention? I don’t know, I guess “Harvard” sells papers. But the idea that because the faculty cares about the university e-mail policy that we’re “self-absorbed” is bizarre to me. I’d care about the e-mail policy wherever I worked.
It’s Monday now. I would imagine that given the attention given to this over the weekend, the administration will respond further at some point. I’d rather they have the opportunity to state their case more clearly rather than continue echoing our initial reaction.
3/11/2024 3:29 am
Professor Mitzenmacher,
I apologize for being inarticulate.
The moral and ethical lapse that I think occurred is this. For six months, the other Resident Deans had no knowledge that their e-mail had been read by administrators. What phrase would you use to describe this action?
3/11/2024 7:25 am
The Times tells the whole story today in a single incredibly telling paragraph.
I’m not referring to the one with Harvey Mansfield, where he says the quiet part loud by saying that big shots like him consider the res deans “functionaries.”. That’s a big tell, to be sure, but mostly remarkable only because it shows again that conservatives don’t understand the words they use when they talk about policy, and don’t care what they actually mean.
I’m referring to this paragraph:
“Some of the resident deans said they considered the lack of notice — and even the searches, themselves — a violation of trust, but they refused to speak for the record because they lack job protection.”
This is correct; the res deans have gotten the message. “You are expendable so pipe down.” None too subtle: and the res deans explained it correctly. I can’t talkt to you BECAUSE THEY WILL FIRE ME irrespective of my competence. They are correct to understand the situation that way.
Now imagine a world in which res deans had appropriate job protection. I don’t mean tenure: I mean the job protection that comes from trusting you will be evaluated fairly on your actual work and your attention to the school’s values. I know, I know, but just imagine.
Here is the paragraph you would see:
“Asked whether they considered the e-mail search a violation of trust, all sixteen resident deans declined to comment because an administrative response was pending.”
That’s how you do it. You send a note:
“Hey, everyone, we understand you’re upset. Please stop talking to the media while things are getting sorted out. There’ll be plenty of discussion on this and we need you not to heighten the conflict publicly just now. Please remember that students need to see you as the voice of the school, not adversaries to its policymakers. In the meantime we are going to do what we can to make the reality match that perception: give us a couple days.”
Nice alternate reality, huh? That’s how actual management works when it involves employees you respect. That’s how you motivate and supervise and communicate with workers who are there to express and embody institutional values.
Ironically, it was a management professor who dismantled whatever vestiges of such a world there might have been in the college.
3/11/2024 7:51 am
Sam : Depending on the context, I might call it bureaucratic error, or misjudgment. I’ve been known on very exceedingly rare occasions to make mistakes or bad judgment calls myself; I’d hate for them to be automatically classified as moral failings. It’s not impossible that unethical behavior lies behind this all, but it’s not apparent to me, and I worry that placing the issue as a moral argument will quell rather than stimulate discussion and transparency from the administration.
Similarly, I think the Ad Board member that forwarded the confidential e-mail to the student made an error in judgment. I wouldn’t assign a moral score to it; I’d view it as an understandable if unfortunate mistake.
3/11/2024 7:57 am
I agree with Michael on both counts. This isn’t about ethics. It’s about competence, honest communication, respect, and following the rules. Those are very big things, but the terms Richard used in his original post (now reproduced in the Times) miss the mark.
3/11/2024 8:26 am
Standing Eagle’s sounds like he’d fit right in with the KGB. He’s just anther bureaucrat looking for more power and control. I like the fact the this eagle stands rather then flys because its safer for us all.
3/11/2024 8:38 am
Wide Eyed,
The verb is “fall,” not “fly,” in Tennyson. And it’s deathly all around at that point.
Even better verb is in G.M. Hopkins: “BUCKLE.” All caps, small caps, unredemidcapitation. “The Wind-Hover” is the poem.
The good thing about reading poetry is that it slows down your reading and gives you better comprehension skills for other settings.
3/11/2024 8:43 am
Michael (if I may),
Agree with you about the Ad Board member. It was an unfortunate mistake. Hope you weren’t attributing to me any criticism of him/her, because I never once raised that issue.
With regard to the other side of the issue. All those people (not just one person) who decided that 15 of the 16 RDs were not to be told (contrary to explicit rules) that their e-mail had been looked at … all those many people made a simple misjudgment or bureaucratic error!? Everyone overlooked the requirement to inform the 15. There was no discussion of whether to inform or not? Somehow I find that difficult to believe.
You might call it misjudgment or bureaucratic error. I call it something else, and so we disagree.
3/11/2024 8:57 am
Sam,
Sharon Howell’s initial description of Evelynn Hammonds position strongly suggests that misreading of policy definitions was involved, which supports Michael’s approach. As I said above, “the deans in question apparently believed in good faith AND ENTIRELY WRONGLY that the resident deans were not ‘faculty,’ and therefore the policy didn’t apply to [res deans].”
This wrongness has deep roots in other kinds of wrongness — and you have a point about the indecency involved in not disclosing the search — but your argument about ethics is diluted when you focus on the guidance of the policy. If they didn’t think the policy applied then they can’t be faulted ethically for not following it.
It’s worth noting too that this was a very narrow and non-invasive search: just a computer checking outboxes for the particular phrases of the Secretary’s e-mail. One could be forgiven for believing the res deans who had no such think in their outboxes had suffered nothing by it.
By and large, however, if the incident is seen through the lens of work culture and decency, I agree with you.
3/11/2024 9:01 am
“thing,” not “think”
“Hammonds'” not “Hammonds”
3/11/2024 9:24 am
Mike Smith has issued a statement.
http://www.fas.harvard.edu/home/content/deans-communications
I think it offers a reasonable explanation of why the administration did what it did, what steps they took to avoid prying into people’s e-mails, and even offers an apology to the Resident Deans.
So again, I think that rather than being a moral or ethical lapse, one would consider this at worst a misjudgment, which the administration and faculty should discuss amongst themselves so as either to avoid it in the future, or come to an agreement that this type of action is acceptable.
I’ll be blogging about this myself momentarily.
3/11/2024 9:42 am
This is a good statement. But it dodges the key question.
“Some have asked why, at the conclusion of that review, the entire group of Resident Deans was not briefed on the review that was conducted, and the outcome. The question is a fair one. Operating without any clear precedent for the conflicting privacy concerns and knowing that no human had looked at any emails during or after the investigation, we made a decision that protected the privacy of the Resident Dean who had made an inadvertent error and allowed the student cases being handled by this Resident Dean to move forward expeditiously.”
The sentence after “The question is a fair one” is an immaculate non sequitur. The lack of precedent is meaningless in light of the clear policy, which surely encompasses “metadata” just as much as data. And there is no discernible or sensible basis — none whatsoever — for the implication that informing Resident Deans about the search would have delayed the handling of student cases.
“The question is a fair one,” indeed. If the College won’t answer it, it should admit that it is not answering it and put the apology front and center.
This is, all that said, not a bad start.
SE
3/11/2024 9:44 am
I see that the non-sequitur sentence also implies that informing the Res Deans of the search would have necessarily entailed informing them of the “outcome” — i.e., identifying which one of them got busted for the screw-up. Clearly that’s false. You can tell people you’ve searched their e-mail without telling them what you found somewhere else.
I should note that BZ is well vindicated by the narrative at the beginning: the Secretary properly inquired, more than once, of the Res Deans what had gone wrong. The one who’d messed up should have realized it and come forward.
3/11/2024 9:47 am
Today’s statement, if accurate, answers my concern above-namely, “why didn’t someone just ask the ABRDs if they shared the email or excerpts of it with one or more students for the purposes of advising? I simply can’t believe this didn’t happen. If it did and someone didn’t fess up or couldn’t do the forensic work on his/her own sent-mail folder to realize the mistake, then I’d have my doubts about his/her suitability for the job.”
From the Smith/Hammonds message: “The Resident Dean whose account had been identified was asked about the incident and voluntarily reviewed his/her own sent items and confirmed that she/he had indeed forwarded the message to two students.” So, everyone was asked if they could be the source and told that there might be an investigation. The ensuing investigation was limited to the subject lines of e-mails from xx-abrd@fas accounts. And, the sloppy Resident Dean who didn’t check his/her own work when the issue first arose wasn’t taken out by a crimson drone. That would seem to put a nice tidy bow on the matter, but what of the other leak mentioned in the new Smith/Hammonds message? “A short time later, confidential data from an Administrative Board meeting was shared with the Crimson, heightening the need to determine whether a member of the Administrative Board had compromised the confidentiality of case information.”
3/11/2024 9:51 am
Ha! Patted you on the back before you could do it yourself, BZ.
3/11/2024 10:05 am
Again to concur with MM:
http://mybiasedcoin.blogspot.com/2013/03/mike-smith-explains-apologizes.html
3/11/2024 1:29 pm
SE-I’m curious why you believe Smith and Hammonds about anything. An example: They say that they only searched for the email subject line, not the contents. Seriously? People change subject lines all the time, so Smith and Hammonds were willing to search people’s email, but voluntarily chose to limit their search in a way that could easily make it close to pointless? And if they hadn’t found the email through that narrow search—assuming that they are telling the truth, which I wouldn’t, but whatever—then would they have expanded the search parameters?
And they say now that they didn’t consider the residential deans “faculty.” Well, come now, Sam, what would you expect them to say? “Yes, we considered them faculty and we just decided to blow off Harvard’s policy.” *Of course* they’re going to say that they didn’t consider the residential deans faculty. Their motive is self-preservation.
You’re giving these folks credit for acting in good faith. But tracking people’s email and then keeping it secret doesn’t sound like good faith to me. Seems smarter to assume nothing except perhaps the worst, and compel the deans in question to establish that it isn’t true.
3/11/2024 1:52 pm
I figure they’re telling the truth about most of this, because that’s more parsimonious. They admit to not following the policy; that’s the relevant fact so far. There is plenty of scandal in what they say without making up more.
Notably, they have fallen back from their actual best defense, the one they first founded their actions on according to Sharon Howell: the idea that res deans are not faculty. On reflection they see it’s indefensible. This is a Good Thing, and I congratulate Sharon on highlighting it correctly as the real issue.
Tempest in a teapot, but it will make for healthier interactions over teacups.
3/11/2024 3:42 pm
I don’t see it as a tempest in a teapot, SE. It just is another sign of the increasing corporatization of the university—especially when two deans who are supposed to be advocates for the faculty wind up using the technology of the administration to spy on the faculty. Not good.
3/11/2024 7:58 pm
[…] Rules,” a look at the tenure of a former university president, Lawrence H. Summers, wrote on his blog. “It’s an invasion of privacy, a betrayal of trust, and a violation of the academic values for […]
3/11/2024 10:34 pm
I would not give Deans Smith and Hammonds high marks either for setting a moral example for the students or for sincerity of apology. If someone were required to withdraw from Harvard and then wrote such a apology in the course of applying for readmission, would this low standard really be acceptable?
3/13/2013 10:07 am
A quick point no one has made yet, from yesterday’s Globe story: all the sources here are telling the truth, but the lawyer who drafted Hammonds and Smith’s statement botched it.
Compare and contrast:
“The Smith and Hammonds statement also said that Howell ‘was immediately informed of the search, and its outcome’ shortly after the fact, a point Howell disputed vigorously. ….
“A university official who asked to remain unnamed told the Globe that ‘both the dean of the college and the secretary of the Administrative Board recall sharing the outcome of the search with the senior resident dean.’ ”
See the difference? The statement claims that Howell was told of the search AND its outcome; the people involved say she was told only of the outcome. That’s a big difference. “Say, Sharon, it turns out the e-mail was leaked by ABRD x in x House. Could you follow up and make sure x understood our concern, and see if s/he has any further questions after the conversation we had with him/her?”
Howell would be perfectly justified in assuming that x had come forward on his/her own, in response to one of the requests. This does NOT mean Howell was informed of the e-mail search (which in any case should have been accompanied by notification of all those searched).
A side point, but goes to show what happens when you’re the Dean of the College and you outsource the writing of your own statements.
SE
PS. How do we know the Deans’ statement was written by a lawyer? Because it refers solecistically to the “due process afforded students before the Board.” Only lawyers think “due process” is a natural thing that should appear everywhere, and a phrase with cognizable meaning in every setting. It does not apply to the Ad Board and an Ad Board member should not use it (it confuses lawyers who want to sue the College, and gets them all hot and bothered) — especially if she happens to chair the Board.
3/15/2013 9:06 am
Just for the record, it’s worth noting that the leaked e-mail was a BIG DEAL on this blog at the time it was leaked — not because it was actually scandalous but because Richard, like many other commentators, was so eager to find scandal in it somehow. This is part of the reason the macro-deans overreacted to the leak — and if they had followed the policy and shown respect for their colleagues I think I would have little problem with it.
In other words, those who wonder why Harvard is so defensive and close-to-the-vest ought to look in the mirror just a little bit. In the linked thread (which I sought out to see how BZ got exercised), Harry and Michael and BZ do an excellent job showing RB that his desperation to find a scandal at Harvard in the leaked e-mail was uninformed and a bit unseemly. This is part of the context for the malfeasance under discussion this week.
https://richardbradley.net/shotsinthedark/2012/09/19/at-harvard-the-scandals-impact-grows/
Unlike most commentators, I hasten to add, RB is interested in GETTING informed and getting the story right; that’s what sets him apart from the media vultures that screech and flap whenever something at Harvard doesn’t smell exactly right to their carrion-attuned nostrils.
Gradually I hope it will become clear that the rottenness sxposed in the snooping scandal is not of general public interest, and is not about the principle of “privacy” (the e-mails involved were all about policy).
Until then, insofar as their misconduct and failure to follow the policy has earned the macro-deans the suspicions of the student body and the community in general, I call that in the short term what Schlegel called it in his Meisterstücken on the philosophy of education: “comeuppance.”
Had a few minutes on the commuter rail this morning; sorry to ramble.
SE
2/25/2014 12:13 am
Thanks for your whole efforts on this web site. My daughter really loves carrying out investigations and it’s simple to grasp why. Most people learn all regarding the compelling manner you create helpful tips through this website and therefore cause contribution from some other people on that area plus our simple princess is truly understanding a great deal. Take pleasure in the remaining portion of the new year. You’re the one performing a glorious job.
tiffany free runs nike http://www.hods.org/English/activities/emergency.asp?p=tiffany-free-runs-nike.html