New Book Blasts Summers’ Tenure

In the first large-scale assessment of his tenure as University president, a book set for release next month portrays Lawrence H. Summers as an autocratic leader whose pervasive influence has jarred the Harvard campus.

The book, Harvard Rules, by Richard Bradley, takes a harshly critical view of Summers’ first three years at the University’s helm, casting new light on several major issues facing his administration—from his stance on affirmative action to the curricular review—and adding new details about his most public spats with Harvard professors.

Piecing together an insider’s narrative with largely unnamed sources, Bradley depicts a campus jarred by Summers’ heavy-handed leadership style and embarrassed by a series of gaffes at the beginning of his tenure.

The book’s release, set for March 1, comes as Summers continues to reel from criticism of his remarks last month on women in science. And while that latest flap does not make the pages of Harvard Rules, it will likely draw increased attention to the book and its criticisms of the beleaguered Harvard president.

The Crimson examined an uncorrected proof of Harvard Rules and relayed a litany of its claims to Summers’ spokeswoman, Lucie McNeil, on Monday night. “We’re not going to dignify that kind of sensationalist gossip with comment,” she said yesterday.

Mass. Hall did not cooperate with the book and Summers denied repeated interview requests, Bradley said.

FACULTY DISCORD

Bradley’s book revives several issues which dogged Summers in his first years at the University, including his stance on affirmative action and his dealings with professors in the department of African and African American studies.

In his first month on the job in 2001, according to the book, Summers told African-American faculty and staff members that he was unsure of his position on affirmative action.

“That’s one of the things that I need to think about,” Summers is reported to have said. “I need to look at all the relevant data and decide what position Harvard will take, and that is something I plan to do in time.”

When Summers finally declared his support for affirmative action, Bradley writes, he had “adjusted his public position” while remaining privately skeptical. Defending the policy “had more to do with affirming Harvard’s independence” from the government, according to unnamed sources in the book.

Bradley also writes that Hanna H. Gray, former president of the University of Chicago and one of seven fellows on Harvard’s highest governing board, is an ardent opponent of affirmative action.

“You know, the University of Chicago has only one percent black students,” she is said to have told a friend. “We make no accommodation to anything.”

Through McNeil yesterday, Gray called the account “absolutely untrue.”

Informed of that and other rebuttals, Bradley said yesterday he stood by his reporting, which consisted of hundreds of interviews, including discussions with administrators and members of Harvard’s top governing boards.

Several Crimson editors also spoke to Bradley for the book.

As he recounts Summers’ now famous dispute with former Fletcher University Professor Cornel R. West ’74, Bradley puts forth new details of the contentious meetings which ultimately led to West’s departure in 2002.

Summers, the book claims, attempted to pit West against Harvey C. Mansfield ’53, the Kenan professor of government, who attributed grade inflation in part to a rise in the black population at Harvard.

“I want you to help me fuck Harvey Mansfield,” Summers told West, according to the book.

West did not return a message seeking comment yesterday.

Nearly a year later, after West announced his departure for Princeton, Summers is said to have implied other factors were behind their dispute.

In an off-the-record meeting with the editorial board of The New York Times, according to Bradley, Summers asked rhetorically, “What would you do if you had a professor with a sexual harassment problem?”

Ruminating on that comment, Bradley writes, “It was one thing to confront a scholar face-to-face, but this rumor felt deliberately planted in the press, meant to be spread behind the scenes, without accountability. The new president was obviously versed in the ways of Washington. What did that bode for Harvard?”

As is customary in the nation’s capital, Bradley’s book is likely to receive the so-called “Washington read”—a quick scan through the index for one’s name—from Harvard faculty, administrators, and students.

And Summers aside, no one appears more often in the text of Harvard Rules than Henry Louis “Skip” Gates Jr., the chair of the department of African and African American studies who threatened to leave for Princeton after West’s departure.

Bradley writes that Summers flew to Gates’ home in Martha’s Vineyard in August 2001 to convince the treasured scholar to remain at Harvard.

“Both men had grievances,” writes Bradley. “Summers had heard through the grapevine that Gates had repeatedly called him ‘an asshole,’ and he asked him to stop....Gates responded that asshole wasn’t a word he would use. He would have called Summers a ‘motherfucker,’ and, yes, he probably had. So what?”

Gates confirmed yesterday that Summers visited him at his home but denied using either of the choice words attributed to him.

“The last person in the world I wanted to welcome into my home that day was Larry Summers,” Gates said in an interview, “but those are words I never used.”

Gates also denied Bradley’s assertion that he went to Summers in the spring of 2004 and asked for a raise, which Summers refused.

“That is total bullshit,” Gates said yesterday.

‘THAT KID IN SECTION’

Bradley, a former editor of George magazine who earned his master’s degree in American history from Harvard in 1990, steers clear of any overarching theses in assessing Summers’ tenure. But his narrative paints a largely negative portrait of the president. One unnamed administrator is quoted as saying, “I’ve never been in a place with the combination of low morale and bunker mentality that now exists at Harvard.”

In a lengthy passage on Summers’ “social peccadilloes,” Bradley recounts several tales of the president’s poor table manners, brusque demeanor, and “bizarre habit of falling asleep in public.”

Referring to the president as “that kid in section,” Bradley speculates that Summers might suffer from Asperger’s Syndrome, a form of autism associated with deficient social skills.

Bradley also outlines several examples of what he calls a concerted effort by Summers to consolidate the power of the Harvard presidency.

Dean of the Faculty William C. Kirby, described as “a G-man from the 1950s,” is portrayed as one of Summers’ most loyal yes-men at the University.

And Bradley writes that Summers repeatedly called Jeffrey Wolcowitz, the senior lecturer of economics who managed the College’s curricular review until this fall, instructing him to insert several recommendations into the review report which were not approved by faculty committees.

Wolcowitz categorically denied that assertion in a brief interview yesterday.

Bradley’s profile of Summers is his second book. His first book, American Son, written under his given name of Richard Blow, chronicled the life of John F. Kennedy, Jr.

—Staff writer Zachary M. Seward can be reached at seward@fas.harvard.edu.