There were many reasons for Summers difficulties and subsequent departure, not the least of which were his table manners, or lack thereof.
There's a book by Richard Bradley that came out about 6 months ago that gives some insight into the unfortunate mess. Bradley is a liberal but the book is interesting.
I'd much rather have a rational, intelligent, pragmatic liberal-willing to offend the entrenched Marxist notions and cultural relativism that characterizes so much of modern academe-who is occasionally brusque, than a cipher-an unremarkable, bland leftbot-like Derek Bok, who is more agreeable to hard-core ideologues who serve as trustees, or the Red Diaper Babies that have nested within Harvard's faculty.
Summers's confrontational manner was absolutely necessary.
He told the entrenched interests of Harvard what they needed to hear, not what they wanted to hear.
He told them that this university was squandering its endowment on tangential projects that had nothing to do with education.
He was right.
He told them that radical chic professors like Cornel West needed to do legitimate scholarly reasearch, which was anathema to those very same overcrendentialed, underqualified sock puppets.
He was absolutely right about that too.
He told them that radical gender feminists should not be allowed to impose strict numerical quotas according to sex, and not merit.
Before he retreated from that position, he was correct about that.
Why do you think the student body-which hasn't had the time to be marinated in warmed-over Marxism and politically correct groupthink-admired him so much?
The failing of the Summers administration is that he did not stand up for his own values when they were under assault.
He should have stood his ground, not knuckled under to the braying, noxious harpies, the rainbow flaggers, and the red fascists, who now have one more scalp to add to their collection of free-thinkers who've been vanquished by the totalitarian brigades.