WASHINGTON — I have it on the best of authority that Harvard
State University’s President Lawrence H. Summers resigned only
after credible threats of violence were received at his office. My
sources, working from several listening posts on the campus
disguised as homeless people, report that Dr. Summers offered to
resign upon receiving credible threats from sectarian elements
within the influential Faculty of Arts and Sciences to blow up the
university’s football stadium where its semi-pro football team
plays in the fall and the university’s renowned trans-sexual field
hockey team competes in springtime. From the African and
African-American Studies Department there were also threats of
roadside bombs to be detonated against professors caught smoking
pipes on their way to class — a habit recently picked up by some
younger women faculty members — or against students ostentatiously
carrying books to class. These threats were not deemed credible by
Dr. Summers’ staff, but that they were circulating on the HSU
campus adumbrates the eerie atmosphere that now pervades this
370-year-old institution of higher learning.
Earlier President Summers, an economist and one of the few
Clinton administration cabinet members never investigated by an
Independent Counsel (the administration attracted seven!), created
controversy when he advised black studies professor Dr. Cornel West
to give up composing rap songs and try his hand at scholarship.
Professor West’s rap lyrics actually never achieved the violence or
licentiousness to attract a wide audience anyway. President Summers
also suggested that Professor West ease up on counseling the
prospective presidential campaign of the Rev. Al Sharpton.
Indignant, Professor West left HSU for Princeton, where he
doubtless feels vindicated, and might even write a song about his
rival’s demise, perhaps one that can be recorded by Jay-Z.
Professor West opted for Princeton despite the university’s
experience with the paramilitary group, Concerned Alumni of
Princeton, revealed by Senator Edward Kennedy at the Alito
hearings. This is a serious guy.
As to whether the end of Dr. Summers’ five-year-old presidency
was truly voluntary or forced upon him, there is controversy. The
New York Times reports that he “privately concluded” a
week before resigning that he should depart “after members of
Harvard’s governing corporation and friends — particularly from
the Clinton Administration — made it clear that his presidency was
lost.” Perhaps his colleagues from the Clinton years would have
stuck by him if the cause of his troubles was sex with an
undergraduate, but the embattled president’s problems were deemed
too serious. Aside from offending Dr. West, he had caused a
terrible hullabaloo by opposing grade inflation and complacency on
the faculty. He will be replaced by the interim presidency of HSU’s
president from 1971 to 1991, Derek C. Bok, 75, once Bok is
located.
Dr. Summers also caused controversy when he disagreed with
faculty members who wanted the university to divest itself of
corporate investments in Israel. At the time he bluntly spoke out
against anti-Semitism among elites. He had also attempted to bring
ROTC to campus. His gravest misstep occurred when at an academic
conference he suggested research into whether the paucity of women
among the top ranks in science and math was the consequence of
innate gender differences. That provoked a 218-185 no-confidence
vote from the faculty. The anger toward him never abated even after
Dr. Summers’ frequent abject apologies.
“A strong leader is not just someone who can name a goal or
force a change, but someone who can bring out the best in people,”
commented one of the offending president’s most vociferous critics,
Professor Mary C. Waters, an HSU sociologist. What she considers
“the best” in people remains unclear. She is among the university’s
most rancorous and self-pitying faculty members. Even for a
sociologist she is barbaric.
My sources report that Dr. Summers did himself no good with the
faculty by becoming a hero to the student body. The weekend before
his resignation the student newspaper, the Crimson,
published a poll showing that some 70 percent of the university’s
undergraduates wanted him to stay. Knowledgeable observers around
the Harvard Yard recognize that many faculty members are very
jealous of the undergraduates, viewing them as handsomer, prettier,
and in some cases much better skateboarders. Also the
undergraduates are seen as a threat to the professoriate’s
self-esteem, as many do not watch much television or play video
games. They agree with Dr. Summers that Harvard State University
should be a citadel of learning even if that means reading books
rather than conducting witch-hunts.
