Summers Planned To Fire Kirby, Sources Say

University President Lawrence H. Summers told professors and members of the Harvard Corporation last fall that he planned to ask Dean of the Faculty William C. Kirby to leave his post at the end of that academic year, according to a professor close to the central administration and an individual in regular contact with members of the Corporation.

Summers set the plan aside when the controversy over his January remarks on women in science made such a move politically infeasible, according to the sources.

“Kirby’s ouster was put on hold indefinitely” after last spring’s controversy erupted, according to the individual close to the Corporation.

Ten months later, Summers is still strongly considering asking Kirby to leave, the sources also said, although a spokesman for the president said yesterday that the dean has Summers’ support.

But according to the source close to the Corporation, Summers’ view now is “let’s wait until it’s tenable.”

Those two sources, as well as three professors who confirmed the president’s deep dissatisfaction with the dean, asked not to be named because they feared damaging their relationship with Summers, Kirby, and members of the Harvard Corporation.

Spokesmen for Kirby and Summers declined yesterday to directly address word of the president’s plans last fall to ask Kirby to step down as the leader of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences (FAS), which comprises the College, the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, and the Extension School.

Several professors pointed to a difficult working relationship between the two men as the primary cause of the tensions threatening to end Kirby’s tumultuous tenure, now in its fourth year.

The conflicting leadership styles of the strong-willed president and the more reserved dean have been particularly visible in their efforts to guide the ongoing Harvard College Curricular Review. While the review continues to face intense scrutiny and criticism from the Faculty, Summers stepped down from his leading role in the review in the spring of last year.

One member of the review’s Committee on General Education—of which Kirby was chair, and Summers an ex officio member—said that the president was clearly frustrated with the dean’s practice of skimming over difficult issues rather than thoroughly addressing them.

Kirby and Summers have “very different personalities,” Leonard W. J. van der Kuijp, the chair of the Sanskrit and Indian Studies Department, said yesterday. “I always felt Dean Kirby was very conciliatory and very willing to listen to different sides, and I’m not sure if the president is cut from the same cloth.”

Several sources expressed concern that the news of Summers’ plans was intentionally divulged to gauge Faculty sentiment for Kirby’s possible departure.

“I would hope that what we are seeing here is not a leak intended to see which way the wind blows,” said another FAS chair who wished to remain anonymous.

The chair added that replacing Kirby in the near future could only increase the challenges faced by the Faculty in dealing with concerns such as the ongoing curricular review.

“In my view, changing the leadership of FAS at this moment would not help us to proceed with the pressing business that is before it,” the chair said.

Another professor said that faculty believe the criticism of Kirby may be misdirected.

“Some professors, even some who want Kirby to go, have said he is a scapegoat for the more fundamental problem, which is Summers,” the faculty member said.

Yesterday evening, Director of Communications for FAS Robert Mitchell referred inquiries about the dean to the President’s Office.

In a brief interview last night, the president’s spokesman expressed Summers’ support for Kirby’s initiatives.

“Dean Kirby is actively working on very important matters including the Curricular Review, faculty development, and physical planning, in which he has the full and continuing support and confidence of the president,” said the spokesman, John Longbrake.

“Rumors fly around and we don’t usually dignify them with comment,” Longbrake added.

—Rebecca D. O’Brien and Zachary M. Seward contributed to the reporting of this story.

—Staff writer Evan H. Jacobs can be reached at ehjacobs@fas.harvard.edu.

—Staff writer Anton S. Troianovski can be reached at atroian@fas.harvard.edu.