At Harvard, The Hits Just Keep on Coming
Posted on February 16th, 2006 in Uncategorized | 6 Comments »
Marcella Bombardieri has a fascinating pieceâand one sure to be a big problem for Larry Summersâin today’s Globe.
Bombardieri got former Harvard graduate school dean Peter Ellison, who resigned the position a year ago, to talk on the record about what it was like to work for Larry Summers. And the answer? Not pretty.
Ellison recounts two damning anecdotes.
The first is the story of a meeting between the two men in which Summers suggested moving some funds from a sociology program to the Kennedy School.
According to Ellison, ”President Summers asked me, didn’t I agree that, in general, economists are smarter than political scientists, and political scientists are smarter than sociologists? To which I laughed nervously and didn’t reply.”
The second story is more damaging still. After a meeting in which Summers undercut Ellison’s authority over a question related to the granting of Ph.D’s, Ellison offered his resignation to Summers. (That’s what you’re supposed to do when you feel you can no longer do your job.) Summers claimed that the incident had been a misunderstanding and promised to send a letter to the meeting participants saying so.
The letter was never sent. And later, at a faculty meeting, Summers was asked if the issue in question had ever been discussed. He lied; he said no.
Some thoughts.
About the second episode…If you look at my Harvard quiz below, you’ll see that this episode isn’t the first time that Summers has reneged upon a promise. I’m sure there are other examples. Freel free to post them.
Nor is it the first time he’s lied. One example that comes to mind: Saying that he didn’t know enough about the Shleifer scandal to have an opinion on it. I’m sure there are other examples; feel free to post them.
I don’t mean to sound flip about this, because these are things that I actually take quite seriously. Harvard has a president who can not be trusted to keep his word and lies. This a big deal, and the Corporation’s ongoing tolerance of it is a mystery to me.
At the boarding school I attended, there were just three cardinal rules: No lying, cheating or stealing. If you broke any one of those rules, you’d soon be attending a different school. You certainly didn’t think you could be president of Harvard.
About the economists being smarter thing…. Well, of course, Summers believes this, and anyone who’s had any dealings with him at all can hear the words coming out of his mouth. It’s actually unfortunate (though understandable) that Ellison didn’t call him on it. Summers might well have backed down. That’s what bullies do, when people stand up to them.
The larger point is, Why make such a statement anyway? It’s deliberately picking a fight. It reminds me of Robert Conrad in those old Energizer commercials. “Go ahead. Knock it off. I dare you.”
(C.f. Harvard Rules, page 147: “The president grew conspicuously more interested in his environment whenever an element of competition was introduced.”)
Forgive me for being crude, but..it’d be hard not to come out of such a meeting thinking to yourself, What an asshole….
I mean, wouldn’t that be the typical human response? Why would Larry Summers not get that?
6 Responses
2/16/2006 4:27 pm
A funny story (or rumor): when someone told Summers that undergraduate concentrators in economics actually have relatively low average SAT scores in comparison to the rest of the class, he was shocked and didn’t believe it, initially.
2/16/2006 8:03 pm
At “the boarding school you attended”, there was no lying, cheating or stealing. I hear buggery, though, was fine.
Here’s an unrelated comment: isn’t this blog just turning into a Summers slagathon and isn’t that just a little tiresome?
2/16/2006 8:38 pm
I was surprised you didn’t make more of the Faculty Council’s action, but I was particularly surprised you didn’t push the Pinker quotes in the Crimson, especially since you seem fond of bringing him up:
———-
“I think with Kirby resigning, the future is very much up in the air,” said Johnstone Family Professor of Psychology Steven Pinker, a member of the review’s Committee on General Education.
Pinker said that he and some of his colleagues aren’t disappointed by the review’s derailment. “Frankly, I wouldn’t shed any tears if it didn’t pass,” Pinker said.
———-
And as to anonymous #2 complaining about this blog becoming a Summers slagathon: tough. There’s lots of blogs about media, etc, but there’s very few that have this focus.
2/16/2006 11:29 pm
Anonymous 2: What *have* you been reading?
As for the Summers quotient…it’s true, there’s been a lot lately. But bear with me; there’s a lot going on at Harvard, a lot to write about.
Anonymous three, that’s why I didn’t do anything with the faculty council thing. Give me a little time…I’m just one guy over here, trying to keep up.
2/16/2006 11:50 pm
Also, for what it’s worth—they were Ever Ready commercials, not Energizer commercials. My bad.
2/17/2006 12:04 pm
Anonymous #2 speaks: Were you not aware that the movie Brokeback Mountain is actually a transposition of an unsuccessful short story about the seamy goings-on at Groton in the 80s written (though never published) by novelist/Groton alum Rob Bingham? Annie Proulx stole the story from the NYer slush pile and changed it to a Western setting and, bingo. Anyway, everyone knows boarding school and buggery go “hand in hand”.