Summers Faces Crisis of Confidence

University President Lawrence H. Summers will now face a battle to keep command of the Faculty—if not his presidency—after professors assailed him at yesterday’s Faculty meeting for intimidating colleagues, tarnishing the Harvard name, and abusing his power.

Over 250 faculty members crowded University Hall for the meeting, many of them forced to sit on the floor and stand under doorways as the debate quickly developed into a one-sided assault on Summers, who sat subdued throughout the ordeal.

Today’s 90-minute session concluded with a unanimous vote to hold an emergency meeting of the Faculty next Tuesday to further discuss what Professor of Comparative Religion and Indian Studies Diana L. Eck called “the widenening crisis of confidence” in Summers’ fitness to lead the University.

Though the format of next Tuesday’s meeting is still unclear, many say it will include a vote measuring Faculty confidence in Summers—and they say such a vote would probably not go in Summers’ favor.

The criticism came at the first full meeting of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences (FAS) since Summers’ controversial Jan. 14 remarks suggesting that “innate differences” may help explain the scarcity of female scientists at top universities.

At the meeting, an unusually stoic Summers reiterated his apology, saying he “made a serious mistake” in his remarks on women in science last month.

“This has been a searing afternoon for me,” Summers told faculty members at the end of the meeting.

Faculty members spared no words in articulating their loss of faith in the president, who has never drawn such ire from professors during his three-and-a-half year tenure.

“[We must] show the public that we are not cowards, we are not spineless, and we are not with you,” said Arthur Kleinman, chair of the anthropology department, addressing Summers in the early minutes of the meeting.

Searing though it may have been, the real trial for Summers lies in the aftermath of yesterday’s meeting.

“Judging from the meeting today I think the likelihood of a no confidence vote is high,” Sociology Department Chair Mary C. Waters, who criticized Summers at the meeting, wrote in a later e-mail.

While most professors said it is unlikely that Summers will resign as University president before Tuesday’s meeting, they did not rule out the possibility of a resignation in the near future.

“The president has been challenged to either fundamentally turn around his style of leadership or to leave the institution,” said one senior faculty member who attended the meeting.

TOO LITTLE, TOO LATE

In anticipation of the brewing criticism, Summers began the meeting by once again expressing regret for his remarks last month.

“I deserve much of the criticism that has come my way,” Summers said. “If I could turn back the clock, I would have said and done things very differently.”

Summers also reaffirmed his commitment to improving the status of women at Harvard, mentioning in particular the formation of two task forces focused on the hiring and integration of female professors into the Faculty.

A senior faculty member said after the meeting that much of the Faculty sees Summers’ apology as disingenuous.

“I think one of the things that resonated for a lot of people in the room was concern about a pattern in which the president says or does something reckless and then apologizes,” the professor said.

The first critics who spoke after Summers’ apology called for him to release a transcript of his January remarks to end uncertainty over what Summers said.

“We cannot have honest intellectual discussion of your points and the evidence you provided for them so long as neither is accurately known,” said Higgins Professor of Natural Sciences Barbara J. Grosz, chair of one of the new task forces.

In what would be his only rebuttal of the meeting, Summers said he would “consider very seriously” the request to release a transcript of his comments, but said that he currently does not intend to do so.

“We do not fear open give-and-take about anything you might have said,” Thomas Professor of Government and Sociology Theda Skocpol told Summers directly, accusing him of “wrapping [himself] in the mantle of academic freedom” in refusing to release the trancript.

Skocpol said the dispute over Summers’ remarks reflects a “crisis of governance and leadership” that is afflicting the University—an opinion expressed by the majority of the ten speakers at the meeting.

“He is doing this in effect, if not in intent,” Skocpol said, mockingly appropriating Summers’ now-famous rhetoric from a Sept. 2002 speech on anti-semitism.

While the Faculty room erupted in applause after speeches in opposition to Summers, not all faculty members criticized the president.

Peretz Professor of Yiddish Literature Ruth R. Wisse said her fellow female professors were doing themselves a disservice by allowing gender politics to silence the open debate Summers had intended to foster.

“Women’s groups are bringing shame to the profession in which we are engaged,” she said. “This is a show trial to beat all show trials.”

POWER PLAY

Criticism moved beyond the transcript of Summers’ remarks to larger concerns that he routinely stifles debate and intimidates professors into silence. Faculty members pointed to a series of mishandlings during Summers’ tenure, including the departure of former Fletcher University Professor Cornel R. West ’74 in 2002, the controversy surrounding the invitation of poet Tom Paulin in 2003, and the lack of communication regarding Allston plans.

Waters said at the meeting that many professors are “held hostage to fear” and are afraid to voice their discontent for fear of retribution, citing professors who e-mail her expressing disapproval of University policy, but request that she destroy the e-mails after reading them.

“Fear and manipulation have been used to govern capriciously,” added Skocpol, who said that professors see their speech chilled “in fear that they will be criticized publicly or lose their jobs.”

Professors say Summers will likely move to galvanize support and make amends before next Tuesday’s emergency meeting, where they say a vote of no confidence is likely.

Two senior professors said yesterday that the grievances aired were only the tip of the iceberg, because professors are only now realizing the scope of faculty discontent.

One of those senior faculty members said that in order to stay on as president, Summers must have the support of a critical mass of the most important faculty members.

The speeches and strong applause at the meeting, the professor said, indicate that Summers does not have the support of that critical mass.

But Allison Professor of Economics Lawrence F. Katz said that the yesterday’s meeting belies a greater support for Summers.

“I thought it was a little more inflammatory than necessary,” Katz said.

“The share of Faculty that comes to meetings is not a random sample,” he added, implying that many professors who will support Summers either did not speak or did not attend the meeting.

A GATHERING STORM?

While no professors openly called for Summers to step down as University President, many openly questioned whether Summers’ leadership has been beneficial to the University.

The Faculty must “debate openly whether yours are the social and scholarly agenda that we want pushed from Mass. Hall,” Professor of Anthropology and of African and African American Studies J. Lorand Matory said at the meeting.

But Summers can be formally removed only by the Corporation, the seven-member governing board of the University.

Professor of the History of Science Everett I. Mendelsohn, in an impassioned speech at yesterday’s meeting, criticized the Corporation for its lack of awareness of Faculty discontent.

“To the overseers, I would say, where are you when we need you?” Mendelsohn said rhetorically, singling out Corporation member Robert E. Rubin ’60. Rubin told the New York Times in January that Summers was an “oustanding president,” adding that he did not know of any faculty discontent with Summers’ management style.

Among the Faculty members who speculated on Summers’ future at Harvard, one professor said Summers has two options—to resign, or wait until he is pushed out after a vote of no confidence at next Tuesday’s emergency meeting.

“There is clearly an enormous amount of air to clear,” Summers said at the end of the meeting.

He could not be reached for comment last night.

At the meeting, the two main docket items—a discussion of Dean of the Faculty William C. Kirby’s Annual Letter to the Faculty and a report on the progress of the Curricular Review—went unaddressed.

Kirby could not be reached for comment last night.

—Staff writer William C. Marra can be reached at wmarra@fas.harvard.edu.

—Staff writer Sara E. Polsky can be reached at polsky@fas.harvard.edu