As predicted on this website, Evelynn Hammonds is kaput as dean of Harvard College. Cambridge’s long decanal nightmare is over.

(Some of you commenters—you know who you are—were skeptical that it would come to this. To me, it felt inevitable.)

The Times’ Richard Perez-Pena reports that Hammonds will leave the job on July 1, after five years as dean.

Hammonds, of course, is addressing the matter with the same candor she brought to explaining the e-spionage and various other matters she’s mishandled during her time as dean.

“I was never asked to step down,” Ms. Hammonds said. “I have been in discussions to return to academia and my research for some time.”

..Ms. Hammonds said, “The e-mail controversy was difficult, but it was not a motivating factor in my decision to step down as dean.”

This is nonsense, of course; there’s not a chance in Cambridge that Hammonds’ acts of e-spionage and subsequent fabulism didn’t lead to her almost-certainly forced resignation. The question is, why does she have to lie? Why not just say, “Although I thought I did the right thing in spying on the Harvard faculty, the decision was an unpopular one and I made some mistakes in how I handled it, so the Harvard administration and I felt that it was time for a new dean and a fresh start. Five years in that job is a lot, and I’m excited to get back to my scholarship.”

No one’s going to believe your prevarications anyway, so why not be honest?

I’ve never been much impressed by Hammonds, and the e-spionage really capped off a mediocre deanship. Good for Harvard for making this change. But aside from the opportunity to point out that I called this departure—satisfying though that is—Hammonds’ exit does create a moment to consider what went wrong, and how a dean can lead better, and I think this issue of honesty does go to the heart of the matter. Though not generally privy to Harvard’s internal workings (not since writing Harvard Rules, anyway), I watched Hammond every time a public matter arose in which she was involved. Her responses typically struck me as bureaucratic, political and disingenuous—she didn’t seem to trust the intelligence or the good faith of the Harvard community. (Remember that boneheaded kindness pledge?)

Even in the modern university, deans are not just administrators, they are leaders, and thus are expected to be generally honest, and not to lie, and to speak to their community with respect and trust. This is particularly true when your position is as a leader of young people who are supposed to be getting an education not just in the classroom, but in character. So when you read their email, or are clearly dishonest with peers and students—as Hammonds was during the e-spionage scandal—you’re obviously not treating them with respect and trust, and, not being stupid, they will respond in kind. (Were the lessons of Larry Summers so quickly forgotten? Or did people draw the wrong conclusions from his experience?)

I guess in that sense Hammonds’ words now are just more of the same. Again: Why? No one will believe her, and she doesn’t have to try to lie to save her job; she’s already lost it. Anyway, she has tenure. It’s not like Harvard is going to drive an African-American woman and former dean into exile. I suppose there’s the possibility of a non-disclosure agreement in which Hammonds promises not to disparage Harvard in exchange for a big check as she heads out the door—c.f. Larry Summers—but I still think there’s a way to leave that isn’t so patently false.

That’s the problem with evasion and dishonesty: It becomes habit-forming.

Final question: Does this mean that Mike Smith is absolved of accountability for his role in the e-spionage? (Which, who knows, could have been his idea.) And does Hammonds’ exit leave him more or less powerful?