Summers, The Faculty, And Harvard's Image

To the editors:

What is important is not that the recent attacks on the President of Harvard (“Lack of Confidence,” News, Mar. 16) are damaging to him, but that they are damaging to Harvard. The noisy faculty members dissatisfied with the administration were not hired to run the university but to teach and research. If they have their parochial self-interests, let them deal with the issues rather than personalities. If faculty members, tenured or not, don’t like the way that the President and Corporation are leading Harvard—and they are unable to persuade them to their views—they are always free to work elsewhere. And those who think that the answer to an issue is to stomp out of a meeting only demonstrate their failure as academics and intellectuals and should be invited to leave. Enough of this disgraceful public bickering by teachers who are expected to know better.

J. ROBERT MOSKIN ’44

New York, N.Y.

March 19, 2005

To the editors:

I was at Harvard from 1950 to 1954 duing the height of the McCarthy era. It was a chilling period, as right-wing anti-intellectuals attacked almost daily many of the country’s greatest artists, writers, actors, professors, scientists, and universities. Even great institutions such as MIT bent to the attacks by suspending professors and thus curtailing academic freedom for intellectuals anywhere.

I never would have dreamed then that, fifty years later, the anti-intellectuals would be within Harvard itself, in our midst. The university which at the very height of the Cold War protected professors, who allegedly had communist ties years before, from a hysteria led by the angriest and most powerful voices in Washington seems now bent on driving from office, as might some mob out of control, its own leader. It seems like good sport, but with deadly consequences for Harvard and liberal universities everywhere. Who would want to succeed University President Lawrence H. Summers, or indeed even teach at or attend a place so disconnected from its glorious past? When will some new delcared truth entrap our next leader?

SAMUEL S. ROBINSON ’54

Belmont, Mass.

March 17, 2005

To the editors:

The Faculty of Arts and Sciences have clearly stated their lack of confidence in President Summers. Of course the Harvard Corporation—one of the oldest absolute oligarchies in the Western Hemisphere, and a bastion of the American ruling class—is in no way bound to act on the faculty’s views. And so as expected, it has announced its continued confidence in Summers. But surely a smart ruling class realizes that, when the servants are this upset, it may be wise to change the household arrangements.

DAVID G. WINTER ’60

Ann Arbor, Mich.

March 18, 2005